When I share my foods with other people, I share it with pure joy coming from my heart. I am not rich, but when I have an opportunity to pay back for whatever blessing I got, I cook something or buy foods to share with people close to me. It is a very simple way of giving thanks to the Lord, of praising Him.
There are times also when I am extremely thankful for something that I will just give money to a friend to buy some foods and distribute to others without naming me as source and let them just enjoy eating what I can humbly afford to share.
When you give foods to someone, there must be 100% sincerity. You must not have a selfish motive that you share foods for something in return.
Many people do have different intentions in doing so. Majority wants to be likable and popular by winning other people's tongues and stomachs. Some expect that if they give foods, the receivers must pay back and do the same. (I remember a couple who refuse to accept foods given by flatmates for this reason: "We are only two and we have a limited budget. If we accept your foods, we may be obliged to give also to you all, and you are many." I saw their constant refusal to accept foods. In our place in the province, our elders told us to take something when other people offer us foods so they would not think we were rude.) There are also people who share foods because they want to manipulate how others think and act -- "I-feed-you-so-you-must-feed-my-ego-or-be-loyal-to-me" motive.
When you share foods with someone, he accepts it, he eats it, he gets full and he thanks you, have joy in your heart. It means that the receiver trusts that the food is clean and would not kill him. Not all foods that I receive I eat, but yes, I thank the giver/s. I smell them and check how they look. I inspect the expiry dates if there is a way to do so. There are people who give foods when they are near-rotten/spoilt.
Be careful when you receive foods from people who do so with a motive. You do not beg for their foods, they offer and you accept with gratitude (even if sometimes you do not eat them) -- but they think you are at their mercy, and they think they are the only ones doing that.
On the other side, if it happens that you feel you are unloved or hated because a person shares his foods with all except you, accept it as it is. There must be some reasons. One reason is that the person does not have joy in his heart when he shares with you his foods. Another reason is that the person may have some limitations in the distribution, and you are not in the priority list. Maybe also he thinks that you are sensitive in receiving foods. The impolite way of telling it? Maybe he wants you to feel bad. So just accept it, do not get envious, and move on with life -- it will not kill you. It is not also a reason to get depressed, hot-tempered and vindictive. If he is or they are happy with that, be happy with that. Stretch your rope of understanding. Life is as simple as that.
According to Mahatma Gandhi,
There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.If many people will not experience hunger, there would be less conflicts and wars. They can think properly with the right nutrients in the brains. There would be less illnesses and deaths. Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food."
In my most trying times, I also experienced how it was to have no food nor water. God did not abandon nor forsake me. So if there is an opportunity for me to pay it forward, I do so, in my own little ways. I passionately make my day when I have a chance to share foods with others with pure joy in my heart, without selfish motives.
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Photo credits: Pixabay
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