A Funny Thing Happened after Dinner Last Night

Last night, managed to get home in time to join hubby (aka “pa”) for a late dinner with our nephew and wife who were visiting from Australia. It was their last evening with us before they departed for China, and we were having a leisurely chat after dinner over our fruits when I decided to bring out the pretty little box of Green and Black Organic chocolates that mum had just brought back from UK.

Opening it, saw that there were some 20 pieces of delicately shaped chocolates sitting prettily in their customised-shaped cavities, except that there was one slim crescent one that was sitting atop the rest. The reactions of the 4 of us were so different. Leon, our nephew, declared that he thought the manufacturers were so generous in giving us a bonus piece. Hubby, on the other hand, immediately noticed the empty cavity and thought that we had been shortchanged of one. Eve on her part correctly observed that the piece had been displaced. The realist, that’s what Leon laughingly called her whilst we all laughed at his unfounded optimsim and “pa”s misplaced pessimism.  Me? Like Eve, I knew that this particular choc was out of place, and just wondered how it got there.

So what does that have to do with our Christianity? Nothing really, I suppose, except that what it says of us is that even when we look at things through the Christian lens, we can still see things so differently. Perhaps Eve came closest to reality as it really is, and does not expose herself to either disappointment from being let down through sheer optimism or self-inflicted unhappiness from the overly suspicious mind. of the pessimist.  But between the two, give me an optimistic mind any time.

“Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah:8:10)