Food is familiar to all of us. We eat it on a regular basis. We feed our families, our friends and for many of us, members of a group we belong to at a pot luck event. Not only do we provide food for ourselves and each other but many of us take great pleasure in feeding birds and the wildlife around us. I have sunflower seeds, peanut butter nuggets and hummingbird nectar available for my birds and cracked corn for the squirrels. It is with great joy that I observe the natural creatures enjoying the food I provide. At my office we have a "critter' dish and much of what would otherwise go into the garbage goes to work for the critters that come to eat their tasty treats.

There have been hundreds and hundreds of books printed with recipes for new and different ways to prepare every kind of food imaginable and most of us have a collection of family recipes that have been passed from one generation to the next. In our family when we were raising our children, I was the cook. However, when we moved to Bella Vista, my husband decided that he would like to try his hand at it. Oh my gosh ... what a fabulous idea that was! Granted, we now have cookware that I never saw but the results are outstanding. He loves to experiment and in the 20 years we have lived here I can hardly remember even one thing we wouldn't do again. For me to come home from work and inhale the delightful aroma of something he has created is a gift beyond measure. What makes this a partnership is he also does the shopping. I do the dinner salad, the vegetable and the clean up afterwards. It is a perfect arrangement for the two of us.

However, there is another kind of food different from that which feeds people and the wildlife. It is called "food for thought". It too provides nourishment, intellectual nourishment. Our bodies digest what we eat to provide support for our physical life while food for thought provides us with the mental support for an issue or idea. We need to chew food slowly in order to digest it, but we also need to think some ideas through thoroughly to digest them. Food for thought provides us with something to chew on mentally.

What composes food for thought for me are those things for which I don't have a quick answer. Things that I need to ponder on, things that are not an easy yes or no. There are so many opportunities to think about what matters in life, what makes me who I am. I want to make a difference to those whose life I touch in a positive way.

And that is where God comes into my life. I see all kinds of relationships between my friends and those who I know well enough to understand who they are and how they interact with others. I think I know from reading the Bible and from what I hear on Sunday mornings how Jesus interacted with others and what God expects from me. However, not all my actions are the best they can be and when I think about some of them I need to ponder my behavior. How I treat others is food for thought, and how I can do it better is something I need to work on. I have the ultimate resource in God and knowing how He wants me to respond to life is the answer. He provides food for thought and I need to let Him be the nourishment for my soul. Life's greatest blessing is digesting what He has provided and living accordingly.

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Jan Burgess moved to Bella Vista in 1995. She considers each day a gift -- although some are more fun to open than others. The opinions expressed are those of the author.