Faith Sense

When I was in seventh grade, I learned a life-changing lesson. In those days we left our gym clothes in a basket in the locker room all week and took them home on Friday for washing. One Friday for some reason I forgot to pick up my gym clothes. When I got home my mom asked where were my gym clothes. We only lived three bloocks or so from the gym, I could easily have gone back and gotten them and been home with no real impact on my weekend.

But for some reason I told my mom that I had gone by the gym and my clothes were gone, someone must have stolen them. I was not in the habit of lying to my folks, but that one seemed to work, I did not have to go back to school that afternoon, problem over.

I was the oldest of four and dad worked hard to provide for us, but we lived from paycheck to paycheck, so the next day when he took me to town to replace my gym clothes and tennis shoes, I knew it was not an expected expense. I felt really bad, but I did not own up to the lie.

I was a good student and it was not uncommon for me to be called to the office to get some recognition or opportunity, the principal was a good friend of ours and an elder in our church. So when i was called to the office on Monday morning, I was not prepared for what was awaiting me. My mom and dad were sitting in Mr. Rascoe’s office! I swallowed hard and entered and had to come clean and answer for my lie. I determined that day I never wanted to have that feeling again.

Honesty is the best policy!

Archie Brown was a city boy most of the year. But every summer his family would take a vacation to his father, Orel’s, family’s farm in Arkansas. Archie loved all the things he got to do, even the chores that were so distasteful to his country cousins. But what he loved most was going fishing and hunting.

On one occasion, when Arch was 14, he and his grandfather went fishing in the rice canal that irrigated the rice fields that provided the living for the family. They had a nice afternoon, talking and catching a few fish. Archie was using a jitterbug lure. It was supposed to look like a frog, it had one trebble hook on the bottom, with another on the end.

At one cast, Archie had a strike unlike any other he had ever experienced. His rod bent severely and Archie had a real fight on his hands as he reeled in his catch! But he was not expecting what he found. There were two fish on the lure, each a bass that weighed a little over a pound. One was caught on the hook on bottom and the other on the posterior hook! They had struck simultaneously and really given Archie a battle royal.

 When Archie and his grandpa finished, they stopped by his Uncle Winkie’s to tell the story and show off the fish. After listening to the story, Uncle Winkie told one of his own. He said that once he was fishing with a worm on a single straight hook. When he got a bite, he reeled in two catfish. He said that the first one had swallowed the hook through its gills and the second bit the hook behind the first, thus not allowing the first to wriggle free!

Archie learned that day not to be the first to tell a fish story, even if it is true, becasue there will always be someone with a bigger fish story than yours!

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