I guess I never realized how much taking a meal to someone could really be helpful and make them feel loved. But, boy, with being on bed rest last week… the food has been rolling in!

The first was a home made pizza from Erin (which was awesome) and the rest has all come from people who go to our church. In the last week we’ve had chili, chicken & dumplings, rotisserie chicken, corn casserole, two large salads, mostcacolli, BBQ beef, a very large Po-boy’s sandwich, mashed potatoes, chicken casserole, home made mac & cheese, sloppy Joe’s, chicken cordon bleu, home made bread, cole slaw, potato salad, zucchini bread, numerous desserts, and even things like two bags of chips and one of my friends brought Elijah some fruit snacks and a DVD. Steve never even got around to going grocery shopping this week!

I’m just so blown away, we’ve had more than enough for the 8-9 meals that have been brought to us. Last night was pretty funny, though, I mentioned something about it and Steve said well it was already going on 6pm, there probably won’t be any coming tonight. So he got himself a big salad made up from some that was leftover the night before. No sooner had he started eating when the phone rang. I answered and the lady on the other end was having trouble finding our house (like the night before). I gave her some better directions (Mapquest stinks when it comes to our house) and Steve started picking up some clutter around the house, taking laundry baskets upstairs. A few minutes later he presents me with his salad plate and said, “now what am I supposed to do with this?” I laughed at him and said, “take it in the other room and eat it!” Poor guy, he didn’t know what to do. After the lady and her son brought us an awesome meal and had left I called my friend that I’d been hearing was organizing this and said, “any more food arriving that I should know about?” She laughed because I was finding out about food arrivals right before they came and the people that were bringing the food had assumed she’d told me they were coming in advance. She said that she thought that was it (Friday) and that “we wanted to make sure we got you through the bed rest.” Sweet but funny because Steve had suggested when he got home that we go out to dinner but we all just never did anything about it (so then he got that salad).

It really has been helpful to have this food and while Steve isn’t completely helpless when it comes to cooking, it was great to have something available to Elijah and I when he was late and things that I could then just warm up the next day for lunch rather than stand and cook much.

Thankfully now, though, I believe I’m off bed rest. The doctors last words about resting were “rest as much as you can,” so no bed rest now but no lifting and no real big activity. So since Wednesday I’ve been able to center my days around doing dishes, doing school with Elijah, getting my bath and/or shower, and resting. I don’t mind resting so much (haha) it was the bed rest that was killing me, the absolutely unable to do anything at all, lay on the couch all the time so your hips hurt rest. That was a pain.

Not only free food (haha), it’s great to know there’s so many people that care about us. Several have been my close friends, but there have been other families that have participated that we barely even know. Our church is big enough that we have quite a few people there that we don’t know, even ones that are in our own classes. Sometimes, I guess, it takes something like this for you to get to know people. The lady that brought food last night, I know her and her family by face and name and we’ve had chit-chat here and there and one of her sons worked with us a while with the TV stuff… but I don’t really, know know them. But it really warmed my heart when I thanked her for the food and she said, “that’s what family is for,” and she gave me a hug.

I thanked everyone so far (except for a delivery that we didn’t get to see the people yet) and have written them all cards that they’ll get when we return dishes and such tomorrow. I wanted to do something more to really try and show our appreciation but I don’t know what. I do know now, though, how important something like this can be, and I vow to pay attention and do the same for anyone else I can.