A Pricy Bite To Eat

Eve was in the mood to prepare something special for Adam’s evening meal. She had searched high and low, but nothing she’d found so far seemed quite right. Eve leaned against a tree, resting in the shade of its wide branches, ready to give up.

“What’s the matter sweet cheeks?”

The voice startled Eve and she spun around to find a serpent lounging, hidden amongst the tree’s leaves.

“Oh, hello. I-I wanted to make a wonderful meal for my new husband, Adam, but nothing seems good enough. To be honest, the sun is high in the sky and I’m starting to get a little tired of looking.” Eve hung her head, her brown eyes filling with tears of disappointment.

“What are you crying about? There’s plenty of delicious fruit right here beside me.” The serpent slithered to a comfortable looking fork in a large limb.

“Oh I can’t take any of that fruit. God told us not to, though it is the best looking fruit in the garden …” Eve looked up at the plump fruit longingly. The serpent sat poised, ready to move in for the kill.

“God-shmod. What does he know anyway? Look babe. You wanna please your man, right? I mean, ya gotta keep the guy happy don’t cha?”

“Of course, but God said--”

“Listen up girly. I just saw God put that guy Adam to sleep, pull out one of his ribs and then you showed up. I seem to recall quite a few more ribs where that one came from…so if you don’t wanna bend a few rules to please Adam, I’m sure God…”

“Wait! I guess I could…” Eve reached towards the tree, and then hesitated.

“Oh come on already! Just take some. Do you really wanna run around the whole garden in this heat, when what your man wants is right here? Why waste your time? Who needs all that hard work anyway?” The serpent plunged his verbal fangs into Eve’s soft flesh.

“Well, it would be a lot easier to just take some from here. Then I could start cooking sooner and have more time to rest before he comes home…Ok. I’ll do it.” Eve plucked some choice fruit off the tree while the serpent gleefully pointed out the juiciest ones.

“You just had to have that fruit, didn’t you Eve?” Adam scowled at his wife in disgust.

“But honey! It’s like I told you. It was getting late and I wanted to make a good meal for you after you’d worked so hard naming all those animals. The tree was right there in front of me. It was easier to just…” Eve pleaded with Adam who barely looked up at her.

“Worked so hard? You think it was hard work sitting in the shade, having God’s nature parade past me while I rambled off any odd syllables that came out of my mouth, like aardvark or platypus? You call that hard work? What do you call this?” He continued digging away at the parched soil, grumbling when his stick hit a rather large rock.

“Well how was I supposed to know it would all turn out like this? I just wanted something for dinner…” Eve began to sniffle again as she yanked on a rather stubborn weed, nearly toppling over when it finally came free. Adam tugged at the scratchy fig leaf that was riding up his backside, creating the world’s first wedgy.

“You missed one.” Adam quipped over his shoulder as he and his wife toiled away into the night.

-Debby Sickler

Walking with a limp

Heard of scars leaving marks on us? well i have some petty cool ones which have their own stories. The horizontal scar right below my chin reminds mi of when i tried to swing as high as possible, and at the highest point jump into the trampoline which was not so close..well my visions of landing safely on the trampoline ended abruptly,I straight smacked mi chin on the rod which ended up being slashed, The weird shaped scar on my left knee came from mishandling the iron when i was 9 years old,The scar on the back of my head reminds me of the time when i tried to sit on the brim of a really thin pipe facing towards the beautiful fountain stacked up with rocks behind it and i lost my balance and there you go!
No wonder i don't panic when i see my sister flying in the air pulling off her own stunts,she's accumulating her own collection of scars, and each one of them will make her journey through life unique and memorable.(and drain my father's money on her medical bills) loll.
And then there are the scars no one can see. The scars on my bones fom having a twisted ankle in an accident when the car flipped over while coming from school. And when the weather gets cold i'm generalli reminded of those scars because those spots ache and throb as if to say, "Do you remember?"
There's something strangely beautiful and wonderful about these scars, specially the healing process that follows, you can help but marvel at the mystery of all. Scars remind us of the hurt that took place but especially of the healing that followed,God could have easily designed it so that wounds would heal leaving absolutely no trace of the pain, but the more you read the Bible, the more you realize that God doesn't work that way. God is pretty big on creating "mile markers" along the pathways of life.
In the Old Testament, people who had encountered God in a significant way stopped wherever they were and built an altar. That sounds pretty odd to us, but basically they would stack a bunch of rocks up into a pile to serve as a reminder to everyone who passed by that God had met with them there.
It's a shame, really, that our modern society doesn't have any similar practice of leaving visible markers along our paths to serve as reminders of an encounter with God. But we do have scars -- spiritual scars that each has a story to tell of a time when God touched us and left His mark on us. And the truth is, no one in history has ever had a genuine encounter with the God of heaven and walked away unchanged... unmarked... un-scarred.
Sometimes the scars God left on us come from a wound in our hearts healed by his gentle touch, and some are severe that leave us walking with a limp for the rest of our lives, because God -- as our loving Shepherd -- had to break our leg in order to keep us from wandering away from the flock
You remember Jacob, right? He was a bad dude, a crafty guy, a deceiver. He conned his own brother out of his birthright, for crying out loud. He was cold
That's cold. His brother, Esau, was ticked off, to say the least, and Jacob hightailed it out of town before his brother beat the tar out of him. But one night God intersected Jacob's path in what can only be described as a bizarre encounter which I can't even begin to fully explain. God, in some form that we don't really understand, actually wrestled with Jacob. And it was clear at this stage of Jacob's life of scheming and running, that he was finally ready to do business with God, because during this wrestling match, Jacob refused to let go until God "blessed" him. (A pretty gutsy request, I'd say, considering the life he'd led up to that point!) And in God's amazing love and grace, He did give Jacob a new start... in fact, He gave Jacob a new name -- Israel. How crazy is that?! God took this deceiver, met him at his point of desperation, turned his life around, and then made him the father of a great nation!
Exactly that way whoever encounters with god never gets scooped out unchanged,During that strange wrestling match, God put His mark on Jacob scarred him, if you will. God touched Jacob's hip and caused him to walk with a limp. At the conclusion of that story, the Bible says that Jacob had seen God face to face and lived, and then it says, "The sun rose above Jacob, and he was limping because of his hip."
Wow, what an amazing scene! Jacob, the deceiver, goes into an encounter with God -- arrogant, cocky, walking just fine on his own two feet... and he comes out with a new name, a new purpose, and a limp that will serve as a reminder to him every day for the rest of his life. I imagine there were not too many mornings from then on that Jacob got out of bed and started to walk across the room, and when he took that first step and felt his hip give way... his mind went back to that life-changing meeting with God... and he remembered!
Im sure it was incredibly frustrating for Jacob to walk with a broken hip.. every step he took reminded him of his encounter with God, especially for a man who was always on the run! I bet he did asked God to fix it.I must be honest with you and tell you that I have some "scars" that I sometimes wish would go away. And yet, despite the fact that I've asked God to remove them, He sees a greater purpose in letting me keep them. It seems that God delights in using broken things... He uses broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to produce rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength, and broken lives to show forth His greatness.
We see Peter weeping bitterly in his brokenness and then rising in greater power than ever before to lead the fledgling church into its greatest days. I guarantee you that Peter carried the scars of denying Jesus for the rest of his life, and bet every night he ran his fingers through the scars remembering with painfulness that moment. But God gently touched those scars and healed them bringing peter to usefulness once again
What "scars" do you have in your life? What "limps" seem to be slowing you down and causing you frustration? perhaps you need to stop fixing them and making them try to go away instead ask god to use them, those very things-- to show his strengths through you, there's a good chance God will use those things as "altars" along the pathway of your journey, and not only remindin you of the good work God has done but also as a testimony to the people passing by.
Don't underestimate the power of scars. Don't underestimate the importance of learning to walk with a limp.They are blessings in disguise. It gives us PROOF. Proof that we've wrestled with God and not walked away unchanged.
Everytime you're reminded of your limp, remember and rejoice in knowing that those scars are proof that he knows you by name and came close enough to touch you!

2 Corinthians 12:9, 10 -- But he (Jesus) said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong