“Mom, are you free or attached?” my 18-year-old son asked the other night at the dinner table.
“Huh?” I asked incredulously. I looked over at my husband of nearly 27 years and said, “I’m attached. Real attached.”
“Your earlobes,” Andy said matter-of-factly while obviously trying to get a look at the side of my head. “Are your earlobes free or attached?”
“What in the world are you talking about?” I asked. “I guess they must be attached because they sure aren’t dancing all over the sides of my head.”
“No, they’re free,” Ryan, my other son, interjected, also staring at my head.
“Yea,” my husband threw in. I felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode.
“Will somebody please tell me what’s going on here?”
“I have to do this for my biology class,” Andy explained. “I have to find out if my parents have earlobes that are free or attached.”
Finally, my three in-residence science experts explained the difference to me – if you want to know, go find a high school science student.
“All three of you know this? How have I lived this long and never, ever, not one time, ever heard about earlobes being free or attached? How can that be?” I ranted.
It blew my mind – still does. I’m a college graduate for Pete’s sake – and I grew up watching “Jeopardy” nearly every single day. How could I not know this important, apparently common fact about my own ear lobes?
I experienced a similar feeling just a couple of months ago when my scientific son and a scientific friend both told me that iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value.
“No way – that cannot be!” I exclaimed, thinking of all the salads I’d downed in my long life. “I do not believe my mother would have served us so many salads growing up if it wasn’t good for us.”
Stunned, I went to the internet, determined to prove these “experts” wrong. But there was the sad truth – iceberg lettuce is like eating air and water with a little fiber thrown in.
So, what good is having lived so long if I don’t even know the truth about iceberg lettuce or earlobes? The only consolation I have been able to muster up about my achy joints and multiplying wrinkles is that I thought I was at least getting a little smarter with the passing years. But now I’ve been confronted with two in-your-face episodes that clearly prove I have so much yet to learn.
And that’s how it is, my friends. Let us never think we know all we need to know about this life. Let us never hesitate to learn. And might I suggest we make God the first and foremost subject we study. Forget earlobes and iceberg lettuce – God is infinitely more fascinating to learn about. We can know Him – and, get this — He wants us to know Him — so He chooses to reveal Himself to us when we come to Him hungry and humble.
That’s what I write about because it’s how I’ve come to see life. My scientific knowledge may be a little weak, but I wake up each day expecting and anticipating that God will show more of Himself to me. And He usually does, through His Word, good teaching, and prayer, but also through the crazy everyday happenings of life. That is, He does if I am willing and watching and listening.
God’s character, His Word and His ways are amazing. I believe my curiosity about Him will never be satisfied in this life. The deeper I dig, the better it gets; the more bites I take, the hungrier I get.
Go ahead – baffle me with bizarre facts about body parts and vegetables. I’m easily baffled, and quick to admit it. But it won’t always be that way. One day I’ll know all I need to know …
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. “ – 1 Corinthians 13:12.
Then I shall know fully — for a mind like mine, that’s a promise worth clinging to.