“Oh, Yeah?”
There was a young 12-year-old I really tried to get to know. His counsellor nicknamed him, “Aspirin,” because you felt you needed to take one after talking to him. His name is really Collin, and he’s a funny guy. No matter what subject you brought up to discuss, he could always come back with something pretty witty. He acted like he was crazy, when he gave you an answer—and believe me, he wasn’t crazy. No question about it: he kept me laughing.
By the second day, he acted the same way. I could not get him to talk seriously about anything. I wanted to get to know him as a real person, and then we could be funny together, but he wouldn’t let me. He just kept up the “funny clown act.” Brendan, his counselor, accurately named him!
(I told a few of the staff, including Brendan, that he got the “Psycho Bunch.”)
I was “on the trail” with the “Psycho Bunch,” as April Tummins (known as “Mother Nature,” because she knows all the plants in the woods) was giving us a walking lecture along a wooded trail at the camp.
“Now, you can’t eat this,” she said. “It’s poisonous, and it’ll make ya sick.”
To which comment my buddy “Aspirin” responded, “Oh yeah?”
Believe me, there are some things in life one just doesn’t challenge, even for a joke, and that’s one of them! I know April’s expertise. If she says it’s poisonous, then I fully trust her that it is!
I was ready to make a dive for ”Aspirin,” had he made a move toward that plant! Even though he was putting on a “whacko” act, I’d still do anything to save his life! I like that kid, and eating that plant—even as a joke—would be a horrible way to “check out of life!”
I would try to save him, in spite of himself.
By the way, that’s what God did for us. We stupidly challenged His authority, and we lost. God intervened. He “dove into history” to save us from ourselves!
Oh, that we would all honestly look at our souls, that we would quit playing Satan’s games with them, and that we would humbly accept God’s offer of salvation!
“Aspirin” taught us all something about ourselves.
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