Michael & Cake

I couldn’t stop thinking about cake. For weeks, it looped through my mind like a quiet obsession. I don’t usually crave cake anymore—not like I might have years ago—but this was different. It was a soft, persistent pull. Every day, the thought would pass through: Cake. I want cake.

I made half-plans to get some, but each time I’d forget. Then one autumn morning at my office, the craving rose again. This time, I decided: on my lunch break, I’d stop at the post office and then swing by the grocery store next door to pick up a slice.

But when lunch came, I forgot—again. Instead, I wandered to the park. It was one of those golden fall days when sunlight pours through the air like honey. I kicked off my shoes, pressed my feet into the grass, and let music fill my ears. I felt quiet. Spacious. Present.

Then I saw him. Out of the corner of my eye—a man walking right in front of me. He stopped just a few feet away, holding a cake.

A homeless man. And a cake.

In an older chapter of my life, I might not have noticed. Fear would have kept me tucked away behind my headphones. But something in me had softened by then. He turned toward me, so I took my headphones off.

“Hey,” he said. “Have you seen so-and-so?”

I shook my head.

Then he asked, “Do you want some cake?”

I laughed out loud. “I sure do.”

He fumbled in his pockets for plastic forks—he had a few, tucked away like a man who already knew he’d be sharing. He sat beside me, and in the middle of a quiet park on an ordinary lunch hour, we shared cake.

Michael. That was his name.

In the eyes of the world, Michael had nothing. But he understood something so many of us forget: the joy of simple abundance. “Yeah,” he said, looking at the cake. “Sometimes it’s just so great to have cake.” He had forks because he wasn’t going to eat the whole thing alone. He was going to find people to share it with.

We sat there in the sunlight—bare feet in the grass, crumbs on our laps—and it felt like the real kind of church. One of the holiest moments of my life.

As I walked back to my office, tears streamed down my cheeks. I was overwhelmed. Not because of the cake itself, but because I hadn’t done a single thing to earn it. I didn’t work for it, strive for it, or even remember to go get it. God sent Michael to me. God sent the cake.

This is what grace feels like.

“Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given to you as well.”

I used to think the kingdom of God was somewhere up there in the sky. But that day, Michael showed me it was right here— in sunlight, in kindness, in shared cake between strangers. The kingdom isn’t earned. It’s received. It’s already woven into the fabric of ordinary moments.

Michael showed me the true treasure that day. A kingdom where love is abundant. Where cake arrives right on time. Where nothing is missing and everything is already here.