First, I’m writing this from my phone, so I apologize for and spelling or grammatical errors. For some reason it’s just harder to do from a smaller keyboard.
I love food. I love to eat. Today I was fasting for a friend and her family. I fast weekly for a number of reasons and so have no problem fasting. But today we had what’s called Linger Longer after our Church meetings, and for some reason by the time we got all set up I was so hungry. Have you ever noticed that the more hungry you are, the better the food tastes. Today, everything was soo good. But I really think that’s because it really was all good food.
When I was a teenager our youth group did a high adventure activity that I loved. We hiked down into the Grand Canyon to Havasupi Falls and stayed several days exploring the area. We had to backpack all our gear so we needed to make sure our packs were packed properly and we had the essentials but not anything extra.
It was a very memorable trip. I can still remember how blue the water was and how beautiful and green that canyon was, even though everything up the sides and on top wasa desert. We had a great time.
Friday we hiked out. Because we had camped on the way down, and the leaders didn’t want to camp going out, we headed out early. They sent some of our packs ahead on mules, but stil more than half carried their gear out. My pack was one sent out, but I helped carry others packs here and there all the way out. I remember though not having anything to eat on the hike out. About dinner time we stopped to eat. One of the women leaders pulled out of her backpack a couple packages of tortillas, a can of Refried Beans, and a plastic bottle of cheese wiz. I couldn’t believe it.
We each had a bean and cheese burrito for dinner and shared snacks that we had left in the various packs and then continued on. All the way up the switchbacks getting out of the canyon I thought about how good that burrito tasted. We got to the top in the dark and camped at the vehicles for the night and then headed home the next day.
A little while later I was telling me Mom about this great meal. We were at the store so we bought the exact same items. I was so excited to get home and try this again. It wasn’t the same. In fact, I didn’t like it at all! As I’ve gotten older I realized it was probably because I was so hungry and we’d been eating camp food all week. But I’ve also had a new thought recently as well.
I cannot believe the perseverance of that leader. She carried that food all the way down into the canyon, knowing we weren’t going to eat it all week, am then carried it half way back out just so we could have dinner, the best tasting dinner ever, I thought at the time. I am so grateful for her. I cannot remember her name today, but I remember her caring about us enough to carry that extra load, and her willingness to share.
Food usually tastes better the hungrier we get, but I think the amount of love packed into that food also makes a huge difference. Maybe some day she’ll read this post, and if she ever does, I just wanted to say thank you!
Stephanie Richey Art 
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