The Power of a Meal {Taking Food to Family and Friends}

Homemade chicken and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans and cobbler for dessert is my go-to meal to make for new mamas, sick friends and those grieving. I’ve made it for years and it is such a labor of love. I love to make a meal for those in need, to comfort them when I don’t have the words to help them heal.

I have even been on the recipient end. 

I can still remember the taste of the amazing meal our sweet friend Wilma made when I had my son 24 years ago, the best ham loaf ever. As a new mama, that meal was such a blessing. Even when our family adopted, we were blessed with food and I was so appreciative.

Insert March 2021 for our little family of 4. Our sweet little E brought home Covid from the babysitter’s house. That precious 30 pounds of love and sass shared it with the rest of us.  The. Entire. Family. Got. Sick.

Not just sick, but can’t get out of bed, every bone in our body hurt sick. It was AWFUL.  Covid is NO JOKE!

Even with babies and deaths, I had never known the power of a meal and its true healing power until our family got the coronavirus. I couldn’t cook, I couldn’t warm up nuggets, I couldn’t get an applesauce pouch from the fridge.

Then the meals came. 

The chicken and noodles and soup and Bob Evans and pizza casserole. Unbeknownst to me, a meal train had been set up and then other meals had been arranged. Bags with activities for the boys were dropped off (identical bags for that matter, which was totally genius).  Snacks for the boys were dropped off. More food, baskets of amazing blueberry muffins, books and magazines on the porch… and with every delivery, as I laid in bed, I knew that I needed help.

It was so hard to admit that I needed help, but looking back now, the power of those meals made all the difference. So if you ask a friend if you can drop a meal off for them and they say “they are good,” take them a meal anyway. If you ask what you can do for them and they say “nothing,” do something for them anyway because a little bit of love and kindness goes a long way.

And that meal, or those muffins, they heal in a powerful way.