I made spaghetti for dinner again last night.

I’ve probably made spaghetti for dinner more than 600 times over the 42 years of my married life. For most of that time, I made it because it was a cheap way to feed the crowd around my table. Now that I only have three of us to feed, I cook it to make my husband happy.

He never seems to tire of it.

I, however, have had enough. I’m weary of cooking, again and again, night after night after night.

I’m tired of making spaghetti.

I’m like the children of Israel, whining over the repetitive, glorious provision of manna in the wilderness. We have lost our appetite, they moaned; we never see anything but this manna! (Numbers 11:6)

God forgive me.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that I prayed this?

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.”

Matthew 6:9-11

My daily bread has been given to me, day by day, every single day of my life. Manna in the form of uncountable kinds of food. A miraculous supply, though I have often not appreciated it as such.

If too much of that abundance ends up in the form of spaghetti, who am I to complain?

I remember cleaning spaghetti sauce off of sweet little fingers and faces. The smell of that rich sauce simmering on camp stoves, mingling with ocean breezes or piney woods. I remember boys from Bulgaria eagerly piling it on their plates. Girls from China poking it tentatively with their chop sticks. Youth group suppers. Friends laughing around our table.

Spaghetti signifies provision. Friendship. Welcome. An abundance not just of food but of life.

I’m tired of making spaghetti. And yet, I keep making it. Mostly, I make it to please my husband. But also, I suppose I make it to remember the life—the manna—that it represents.

Yet he gave a command to the skies above and opened the doors of the heavens; he rained down manna for the people to eat, he gave them the grain of heaven. Human beings ate the bread of angels; he sent them all the food they could eat.

Psalm 78:23-25