Stress

(A Turning Point Story)

“Boys, if you want a watermelon, all you have to do is come knock on my door and ask.  I’ll give you all the watermelons you want.  But please, don’t steal my watermelons.”

You know where this is going, right?

I couldn’t help but laugh. A lot.  I was on the bus with a group of men from our church coming back from a meeting, and we were discussing one of my favorite subjects: watermelon.

I suppose as long as there have been watermelon farmers, there have been watermelon thieves, and Lloyd was describing how he and his friends had done it in their younger years in Indiana. They smiled and said “yes sir” to the farmer’s request.

Later that night, they went to work.

Lloyd and his friends weren’t content just to sneak into the patch and dash away with a big, fat prize. They added insult to injury! Under the cover of darkness, they would take long, sharp knives and carefully cut a plug out of the end of the melon attached to the vine. Then they would eat the heart – the sweetest part – out of the melon and replace the plug.

The next day they’d return to the scene of the crime, climb a tree near the patch, and watch as the farmer came to check his melons. He would carefully thump the watermelon and listen for just the right sound that told him the fruit was ready. The climax came when the farmer picked up a hollow melon and discovered the plug. He would throw his cap on the ground, shake his fist in the air, and vow to kill whoever did it. Not only had he been robbed, he had been deceived as well.

Oh, we laughed.

The image of sitting in a tree trying to hold in the hilarity while someone below is losing it was very amusing. But what was funny to me one day soon became very sobering. God has a way of doing that.

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