“For Richer For Poorer, In Sickness And In Health, To Love”

By Rodney Tilley

I know Christmas is over for this year, but there are a few “leftovers” hanging around in all our homes.

There is leftover pie, leftover presents, and maybe even a leftover cousin you find in that back bedroom that never went home. Leftover decorations are still up, with leftover chocolate kisses still in the bowl, and probably in the back of your fridge, there is a piece of leftover turkey just waiting to spring forth and give you a new sprinkling of salmonella.
 
 We are the same at the Tilley home, with leftovers waiting for the kids to return so they can finish off the last vestiges of the holiday season. This year the apple pie is gone, but a memory still lingers in my mind of a past pie once eaten.

I had just come home from a late night visit only to find a piece of an apple pie waiting for me on the kitchen counter. 

Not noticing anything unusual, I proceeded to eat the whole piece along with a large glass of milk, only to realize that inside that wonderful morsel, a garden of green fungus was growing.

You know the kind I am talking about; the green hairy kind that comes from a late night murder mystery in which the wife poisons her husband, and then runs off to Europe with “Brutus.” 

I hoped it was not the case, but I did keep a watch on my stomach and on my wife, just to make sure that she was not planning a long European vacation. But to my relief, all it did was give me an extra shot of penicillin, and my wife only ran off to Dollar General for a gallon of milk.

But there were some insights that I learned that day. First, just because it looks good on the outside does not mean all is right on the inside. The package and the packaging may look nice, but the present on the inside may not be what you want.  I also learned that green is not my favorite color.

But the most important question I learned that day is more much more serious and that is, “if the pie was poisoned, and I did die, where would I have gone in the afterlife?”

In the Bible in Matthew 10:28, it tells us not to worry over our body, but to worry over the person inside, our soul.  It reminds us to, “…not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul.”

Again as the Bible states, “What good is if for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul. (Mark 8:36) You see, the question is not if the pie was poisoned, but rather, where would I have gone if I had died.

So the next time you have leftover pie, look at both the outside and the inside of the pie, and also look inside your soul.

The pie may not be poisoned, but you soul may be, but there is a cure for both, and I know the answer and his name if Jesus.  Call and we can talk about it over a cup of coffee and a piece of pie.  Pastor Rodney Tilley 432-207-0015.