By Bradley Robertson

I began making sourdough bread over five years ago. It was a hit with my family from day one, especially the cinnamon rolls on Saturday mornings. I would roll them in butter, cinnamon and sugar on Friday night to rise for the following morning; children awaking to fresh warm doughy sweet goodness.

When we later opened George’s Farmers Market, I sold sourdough on the weekends and folks would drive distances to purchase a loaf to take home to their table.

As tasty as the bread was, it was the process of making the bread, hands to dough and dough to oven, that kept me coming back to make it again and again. Making bread became holy. It was time where I would think about God and I felt as though God was thinking of me.

I would often look out my kitchen window into the darkest of night skies and feel so small and unknown, but by placing my hands in the dough, bread for life, I would begin to feel seen and held as if God was standing in my very own kitchen.

I would stay up into the night, kids and house asleep, rolling dough on my counter. I would think and ponder and worship and pray. I would cry and I would laugh, never knowing what was to come in our time together.

It was this tangible and ancient thing that brought me much truth and life to the words of the Bible. For when you have pressed your fingers into dough there is new meaning behind, “take and eat, this is my body.”

And when you actually break that loaf of bread for your family, your eyes are opened, and you begin to see. The breaking of the bread, ordinary, but honest in the breaking of everyday life, but then to take and eat, that is satisfaction of here and now.

One act that is severed, followed by one moment savored.

 I think we can all agree that there has been a lot of broken in the last 12 months, but were we always guaranteed happiness?

That’s an easy no. So if we know this to be true, why do we often dwell in broken places when there is always bread to nourish?

It’s the middle space where we often get stuck, the space between broken and satisfied.

“Jesus took bread and broke it, and upon giving thanks he said, ‘take this and eat it, this is my body.'”

True fulfillment rests in the thanksgiving. The gratitude, our gratitude. If our heart can not be fully thankful we cannot accept being fully fed.

When my hands were moving in motion over flour and dough with summer heat on dark nights, it was an act of forever thankfulness.

Thank you God for home.

Thank you God for bread.

Thank you God for children.

Thank you God for bed.

Thank you God for family.

Thank you God for rest.

Thank you God for your Son.

Thank you God for saving all of us.

We have an open opportunity daily to accept the bread of life, to be sustained by the only factor that can nourish every inch us body and soul. Jesus is who He says He is. He is the bread of life. For this, all we must simply say is “thank you.”

I pray you break bread with your family today and tomorrow and often. I pray you speak your thankful into existence. It is this act of doing that brings us to the knowing that God is here today.

Happy Easter to all of you!

-Bradley