When I was very small my parents gave me thirty-five cents a week. Twenty five cents was for the mission offering at church and ten cents was for me. We had a treasure land for a neighborhood store run by a man with no legs. He slid around the well worn wooden floor on a large piece of leather that was somehow strapped to his waist. When you walked in immediately to the right was a glass case filled with penny candy. There were Mary Janes, gummy bears, marshmallow peanuts, wax lips and other wonders. Best of all there was a comic book rack and they were only ten cents each. If I wanted a comic book I had to forgo the candy. It was my choice. Most of the time I opted for a Donald Duck comic, but sometimes I got a Superman.
I remember one week in church they showed us a picture of a small child in Africa that needed food. That week I did not get a comic book or candy. It was not a difficult decision. Often for supper we had dark cornpone and milk. I thought we were rich. And we were when compared to the child in Africa. So much of life is relative. Little could I have imagined that decades later I would spend six years in Africa and would have many occasions to be reminded of that little boy in the picture.
Life is the sum of our choices; here and forever. The most important of all is our commitment to Jesus and the acceptance of His gift and grace. Then comes eternal life with an infinite amount of choices. What we become, where we will go, what we will learn will be our choice.
Written by Roger Bothwell on May 5, 2017
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