Albert Schmidt writes of being at the home of little five-year-old George after the funeral of George's seven-year-old brother, who was also his closest friend and playmate. Little George was so distraught at the gravesite that he had tried to jump into the grave himself. Now at home, he had buried himself and his grief under the bottom of the double-decker bed in their room. He wouldn't come out. He just said, "I'm here and I'm never coming out." His mother tried. Schmidt tried, talking until he was blue in the face. Nothing worked. Arguments. Bribes. Nothing. Finally, Schmidt said the Lord got his attention with a two-by-four; and with that, Schmidt got down on the floor, squeezed under the bed frame so the springs almost punctured his chest, and said to the grief-stricken little fellow, "Well, if you're going to stay here for the rest of your life, then I'm going to stay here with you."

Schmidt says this is what happened. "After fifteen minutes of eternity, George decided we would crawl out and join the rest of the folks. His mom gave us cookies and milk. It felt like a sacramental meal to me." ("Under the Double-Decker Bed," Tapestry, Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985, pp. 123-124)

Cookies and milk, a sacramental meal. Yes, indeed, a taste of God's tomorrow. Even in our greatest pain and deepest hunger, in the limits beyond which none of us can see or go in certain moments of our lives, there is God. Always for us in bread and wine, sometimes even in milk and cookies. Just as it satisfied the crowd fed by Jesus long ago, so it will satisfy you today. You will have tasted God's tomorrow, and that is something. Enough for now.