One day a girl was walking down a large city street. Seeing a man sitting with a cardboard sign up ahead, she thought of how sad his lot in life was. She said a prayer for the man, and then a prayer of gratefulness for the power bar in her purse, the large pasta dinner she would be greeted with back at the apartment. As she finally passed the man, she gave him a loving smile and the words, "Jesus loves you!" Passing, she felt guilty: who was she to pass by without kneeling down to pray for and with her fellow man? Without offering any service God had rendered her to this poor creature, to make known the love of the Creator to this homeless man? So though her feet hurt, though she was expected at home, she turned around and crouched next to the man. Shakily, he raised his eyes to hers. An eagerness in his eyes that the rest of his frame was devoid of, he croaked desperately, "Food?"

"Sir," the girl said, touching his arm, "The nourishment of God's love is everlasting, beyond the sufferings of the temporal body. May I pray for you?"

The girl bowed her head and did not see the man's eyes glaze over, his mind far from that dingy street and the sweet-smelling girl beside him.

The girl prayed a beautiful, fervent prayer and then raised her head, offered the man a gentle, "God bless you, sir," and went away contented.

The next day, a pastor was walking down that same street, with a posse of Christian warriors, among them a doctor, all on a mission to share the love of Christ. Coming upon the man, they knelt beside him and tried to wake him. When the doctor at last pronounced him dead, one of the young women threw her arms around the man and wept. The doctor looked at the pastor and told him quietly that the man had only died a few hours before they arrived. "He must have starved," the doctor muttered sadly, shaking his head, "If only he'd gotten a little bit of food in him in the last twenty-four hours, we could've saved him."

From this little shower-time musing, I have taught myself the following: A body is only temporal, but it is here now. Just because it won't last forever doesn't mean it doesn't matter now. Fill transitory stomachs when you need to. As Tiana's momma always said, "The quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach."