I think it’s always a bit shocking for teenagers to discover that their parents and other “old people” can have fun, and yes, perhaps even be funny. They seem to assume that osteoporosis first strikes the funny bone and erosion begins shortly after one graduates from college.
I happen to think I can be quite entertaining; inspired one-liners routinely trip off my tongue as I go about my daily routine. My dog may often be the only one around to hear me, but I’m sure that’s why he always wags his tail when I appear. Sadly, much of my wondrous humor seems to escape my kids, or at least they seldom dignify my efforts with a hearty laugh.
But the other day, one of my fellow forty-something friends elicited genuine laughter from one of my sons, an occasion worthy of note.
My friend called to ask me a cooking question, but I was not home. My son, Andy, fielded the call and my friend was desperate enough to seek his advice about her kitchen dilemma. Seems she was just finishing up a large pot of soup, seasoned to perfection with a delicious, meaty hambone. Just as the soup was about finished, she decided to stretch it a bit by adding some barley to it. So she opened the box of barley and dumped it in. To her dismay, she discovered that a flock (or is it a herd? a gaggle, perhaps?) of moths had evidently made the barley box their final resting place and her soup was now full of dead moth parts.
She realized that her family would never know about the moths if she just stirred the soup real well and served it to them (while she nonchalantly ate something else, of course).
“What do you think I should do?” she asked my son on the phone.
I’m sure it was the first time in his life that anyone had ever asked Andy a question about food preparation (unless someone wanted expert advice on how long to microwave corndogs), let alone a cooking question so extremely bizarre.
I’m not sure what advice Andy offered my friend, but I know she ended up throwing away the soup, only to feel guilty the next day when she was reminded that people in Third World countries would have eaten it without batting an eye. (That may be true but, if you ask me, it’s yet another reason to be thankful we do not live in a Third World country.)
Anyway, Andy got quite a kick out of my friend’s question. I felt sorry about her wasted cooking efforts but glad she had shared her mishap with our family. And I was reminded of some eternal principles illustrated by her cooking catastrophe.
Sometimes, I think am much like that soup – I look okay and smell tasty as I simmer nicely on the stove of life. But then something nasty gets in there – the dead moth parts of life. Things like unforgiveness or resentment or jealousy or selfish ambition or laziness or dishonesty or ungratefulness. When I see those things in my soup, I’m tempted to stir my pot real well to try to hide the sin, thinking that just maybe God won’t notice. But He does because He sees into my soup with perfect clarity.
But this analogy does break down. Unlike my cooking friend, God doesn’t throw out the soup when He sees some moths; rather, He painstakingly works with me to remove the dead stuff, piece by piece. I may always battle moths in my soup in this life, but one day, when I go to heaven, I’ll finally have a pure, delicious, sin-free life.
As one of my favorite praise songs puts it: “ … through the storm I will hold on, Lord/ and by faith I will walk on, Lord/ then I’ll see beyond my Calvary one day/ and I will be complete in You.”