We all long for the verbal blessing of others. This longing starts early and continues all through our lives. Last night we were all lying in our bunks in a cabin where I was speaking at a family camp. The children were getting in their last squirms and giggles. When things were finally quiet I could hear Hope talking to mom.
“Mom, when are you going to teach me to cook?”
“Why do you want to learn to cook, Hope?”
“When I get married I need to know how to cook.”
Hope is five so I was a little surprised to find that she was already thinking about honing her homemaking skills.
Lois asked her, “Hope, what do you want to learn to make?”
Without hesitation she said, “I want to know how to make pies.”
I think Hope is going to make her husband very happy some day. Men appreciate women who take pie-making seriously.
The room fell silent for a moment and then Hope began to making sneezing sounds. She wasn’t really sneezing, she was pretending to sneeze. She “sneezed” three or four times and then she was quiet for a while. Finally she said with disgust, “Isn’t anybody going to bless me?”
Quickly out of the darkness voices came. All of Hope’s brothers and sisters and her mom and dad chimed in together to give her the blessing she asked for.
“Bless you, Hope. Bless you,” everyone said.
They were the last words of the day.
People all around us every day wherever we go long for the blessing of others. Often when they come to the end of the day and lie in the darkness with their thoughts they have to go to sleep night after night without it. We should be quick to bless others even before they ask for it. And we should all know someone who loves us and takes pie-making seriously. Life would be a lot happier then, now wouldn’t it?
Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
September 6, 2004
