For the Holsteins, Brown Swiss and Jerseys of DeLoach and Sons Dairy, troughs came in all sizes – from concrete cribs to barrels cut in half. There were many muddy December days as a kid that I spent pouring out sacks of grain into these makeshift containers as hungry cows nudged and shuffled their way to be fed. There was always enough to go around, but a cow doesn’t know much about all that – just that the wait is over and the hunger comes to an end.

Will the trough be big enough? Will it hold what I need, what I long for? December can be the hungry season for some. There is a coldness and longing met with fatigue and weariness.

Will the trough be big enough?

In a weary world, dazed by a despotic ruler and mysteries both frightening and overwhelming, a couple ambles into Bethlehem and the young woman gives birth to a baby and laid him in a manger, a trough for sheep, goats and cows. It was not much. Not a hotel, not a hospital room, not even a crib, but the trough was enough. It held everything Mary and Joseph needed to see them through the night and their lives – everything the waiting, anxious world needed.

Will the trough be big enough to feed the ache of your belly, soul and heart? I think so. But still there will be waiting and hungering. Soon the politics of hate will drive the holy couple to Egypt, in asylum and hiding. In time they return home, but we know the rest of the story which includes both heartache and hope. Still the trough is big enough.

Troughs come in all sizes – little hands held up to be grasped; pews holding bodies fatigued by age; kitchen tables layered with storied recipes come to life. Wherever we hunger and wherever we are fed we find ourselves in sacred spaces, kneeling alongside those ancient shepherds at the sight in the manager that was big enough to feed the world.

Mary, we are told, treasured and pondered all of this in her heart. So do I.

Make space in your life for those who come hungry, needing to be fed; listless and needing direction; weary and needing rest. And if you find yourself gathering around a manger because the world has not made room for you and all that you carry, trust that this is where God chooses to meet and feed and rest with you.

The trough is big enough.