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TheTime COIN
Camille Anding
“They don’t make them like they used to.”
How many times have we heard that statement? But that’s the appropriate description of the
salad bowl I got as a wedding gift some fifty-five plus years ago. I was closing out my days as a
student/employee at the Ole Miss infirmary. It was a great experience working in the lab and
sorting files along with making sweet friends among the nurses and doctors.
They celebrated my engagement by giving me a shower on my last day with them. It’s a mystery
how our minds work because I can’t remember any specific gift I opened except for the apple
salad bowl that the senior doctor gave me. For some reason it has stayed in our kitchen cabinets
wherever we’ve lived. If you were to eat salad at our table now, you would almost positively eat
from that salad bowl painted in red apples. It’s very lightweight - not exactly plastic but a cousin.
Anyway, it’s been more than serviceable and still is perfect for what it was designed.
Another go-to item in our kitchen is a set of aluminum measuring cups with handles. They’ve
rested in a kitchen cabinet drawer since the wedding day gifts. I have several other measuring cups
– various sizes, made from a variety of materials. However, the one cup container is washed more
than all the others combined. Its measurement is accurate; it’s lightweight and easy to pick up with
its handy handle.
Last week I reached for it, and it wasn’t in its usual place in the drawer. I scanned the
countertops. Not anywhere. Then I checked the dishwasher. Wasn’t there either. Where
could it be? Surely, I wouldn’t have put it in the refrigerator, but I looked! No, I hadn’t
been that confused, yet. I went on with my cooking wondering where it could be and
wondering where I could go to replace it. It was just a very plain aluminum measuring
cup but so convenient for me.
The next day I was baking and stirring and reached under the counter for my flour
container. There peeping through the floured glass was my measuring cup. I was elated.
Inadvertently when measuring for my last baking episode, I had left it in the container.
It’s just a very old aluminum and very plain measuring cup, but it’s very valuable to me.
Sometimes as a Christian I have wanted God to use me in ways I would know, ways that would
benefit others, ways when I felt like I wasn’t just “waiting on a shelf.” My apple salad bowl and
aluminum measuring cup answered all those questions. God is not so much interested in our
abilities as He is our availability. My bowl and cup are readily available and always meet my needs
for what they are designed. They are both lightweight – easy to use without necessary care or fear
of my hurting them in use. And they are always ready, just waiting to meet their owner’s specific
needs.
I know God is never limited in what or who He needs. However, isn’t it an endearing thought to
think He would always have a need for us and for that specific need He would know just where we
were - ready, willing, and available.
90 • APRIL 2023