As Real As Possible

The courage to be your truest self can be hard to come by, but being YOU is what fills life with experiences--difficult, hopeful, heartbreaking, rejuvenating--that grow us into wholeness. Join Christina Barry, theology teacher, life coach, wife, mom, friend, and spiritual guide, as she seeks each week to live her most authentic self and reflects honestly on the ups and downs of being as real as possible. Each episode will share with you real stories from Christina's life and then prompt you to reflect on your own life: how are you living authentically in your relationships, your work, your self, your goals, and your soul? As she shares and prompts you to personal reflection and growth, Christina has two goals for her podcast: to inspire you to be as real as possible, because the world needs who you really are, and to reassure you that who you are is deeply good and worthy of love. Pay attention to the inner workings of your soul. Begin to notice what is life-giving to you and what is life-draining to you. Attend to the goodness inherent in your deepest self, and start to LIVE it. Live as real as possible. The world needs who you really are. #personalgrowth #selfhelp #family #parenting #God #growth #prayer #lifechanges #gratitude #joy #lifecoaching #youngadults

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As Real As Possible

How Many Loaves Have You?

February 15, 2023 • Christina Barry • Season 1 • Episode 15

Give with a full heart all of the little you have. 💙

I once heard a priest at a retreat ask this question of us: "How many loaves have you?" What gifts do you have to offer? Do you offer them freely? How do you love others through the gifts you have been given?

How does God take what you have and make it enough?

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Give with a full heart all of the little you have.

I once heard a priest at a retreat ask this question of us: How many loaves have you?

The question comes from this story in the Bible, when Jesus is talking to thousands of people, and he’s been talking for a long time, maybe days, and then there’s a quiet moment…and everyone realizes they’re hungry. And the apostles tell Jesus to send the crowds away, but the crowds have come to Jesus because they are hungry, deep in their souls…so how can they go home to get fed? They’ve come to be fed. And the apostles are getting pretty nervous, because they can definitely see that Jesus doesn’t have enough food to feed thousands of hungry people. And Jesus looks at them, exhausted from speaking so many words of life to so many, and says to the apostles, “You give them something to eat.” And the apostles are no longer just nervous—they are aghast. If their leader, their teacher, their prophet, their Messiah doesn’t have enough to give these people, how on earth could they??!

And then Jesus responds to their panicked futility…but doesn’t let them off the hook. He says more gently, “Look, how many loaves have you?” And they tell him they have five loaves of bread and two fish. To feed thousands of people, remember. (The text actually says 5000 men, and that’s not counting women and children. But we really don’t have to get too specific here because, let’s face it, five loaves of bread and two fish are not going to feed my family of five, let alone 5000, if it’s after a football game or a wrestling meet.) So they’re screwed. They just don’t have enough for what the people around them need.

Does that sound familiar? Hmmm.

I feel like I don’t have enough for what the people around me need pretty much every single day. Often more than once a day. I don’t have enough time, time to meet with my girlfriends or listen to everything my 14 year old wants to tell me or play on the floor with my preschooler. I don’t have enough energy, to get a workout in and clean the house and work, really work, the way I want to. I don’t have enough physically, to snuggle my husband and wrestle the dog and cuddle with the cats and lie in bed with the kids while they talk. It literally comes out of my mouth all the time: “There is just not enough of me.”

I say no to so many people, so much of the time, because there is not enough of me. St. Augustine said that no one can love us the way we really yearn to be loved, because no one is God. I feel that both ways… Not being loved as I yearn to be, and also not being able to give the love that I know other people yearn for, and need, deep in their souls. It is sometimes a painful way to live, to be aware of this, and to be always trying.

I wonder if the apostles felt like that at that moment. I wonder if they wanted so much to give the people around them what they needed… And knew, without a doubt, they did not have what the people needed. They would fall short, because they were not God.

But here’s what happened next. Jesus took what they had, their five loaves and two fish, their measly offering for thousands of people, and he made it enough. Jesus could’ve done it all on his own, without the apostles, without the gifts they had to offer. But more and more I see that the New Testament is full of stories of Jesus exhorting us to use our gifts, even though he knows they are not enough. Even though he knows we cannot love enough. Or spend enough time. Or have enough energy. Or ever work or play or live or love enough. But somehow, it matters that we offer what we have, the little that we have. It matters that we offer it out of our generosity to the people around us, whom we can never fulfill, because Jesus works through those gifts. The one who is Love takes our loving offerings and makes them enough. He does this with me when I don’t have enough for my kids, but I offer what I have anyway. He does this with me when I don’t have enough for my husband, but I offer what I have anyway. He does this with me when I don’t have enough for my mom or my sister or my brother or my dad, but I offer what I have anyway. He does this with me all the time.

After Jesus accepts the apostles’ offerings and blesses them and passes them out through the crowd, there is so much left over that it can feed the people for days on end. It multiplies. Love multiplies. Love is not finite; it does not run out. These gifts that are not enough turn out to be more than anyone needed. This is what happens with us if we give with a full heart all of the little we have. We look around and it becomes miraculous. People around us are filled, glowing, joyful, and overflowing to those around them. I have seen this happen. I have seen this happen in my classroom, on retreats, in my living room, sitting on the floor with friends, sitting on a rock with my husband. I have seen this happen, and I have felt it happen, and I felt myself be filled up when I know damn well that none of us has what it takes to fully fill another up. But I feel that moment when the people around me offer the little that they have, and God makes it enough. It is what gives me the courage to keep showing up, to keep offering the loaves that I have, because I know that, somehow, the offering of it makes it enough.

Questions for reflection:

How many loaves have you? What do you have to offer those around you? What are your gifts?

What gifts can you hand over to Jesus and let him do what he will with them? Are there gifts that you notice you are keeping for yourself, or that you are afraid to offer to the world around you? It can be very scary to offer up our gifts… It necessarily makes us vulnerable, and it takes real courage to offer our gifts, courage and vulnerability in a Brené Brown kind of way.

Do you get a sense that you might be able to offer your gifts in a new or different way? If so, what do you need to feel brave enough to do so? What is one concrete step that you can make today to move you toward offering your gifts to those around you?

Songs for reflection:

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