When we lived in Milwaukee, I absolutely adored my friends’ little girl, Allie. And she liked me, too, but she really liked Ken. She called him ‘Pen’ and she called me ‘Shan Pahkin’ and we had great times with her. She was cutest little flower girl in our wedding, and sometimes (if we begged hard enough) her mom and dad would drop her off at our little apartment so we could take care of her for a while.
This picture was taken shortly after our wedding, when Allie was about 2 1/2. I made homemade pizza that night for the first time. Being the non-cook that I was, I had made an error in transcription my mom’s recipe for sauce and was too inexperienced to catch it. Rather than adding 2t of garlic salt, I dumped in 2T! The pizza was so salty!! (Some would say I still haven’t mastered cooking with salt.)
Ken and I could only handle about one piece each, but Allie kept saying, “I’m really thirsty. Can I have another piece?” We laughed so hard as we repeatedly filled her sippy cup with water and watched her eat, thankful that someone was able to endure the salt.
Allie’s little two year old taste buds remind me of newer Christians. They’re really tolerant of ‘excess salt’. Even if someone pours it on thick or is unbalanced in their approach to Scripture, they say, “I’m really thirsty. Can I have some more?” But more ‘seasoned’ Christians can be really finicky. We pick at sermons or turn our noses up at testimonies, saying, “They didn’t get that exactly right.”
While I want to work at proportioning the amount of salt that I sprinkle onto the message I offer the world, I also want to have a gracious palate. I want to remember that I was once a youngster who made transcription errors as I read God’s Word, too.
May we never get to the place that we’re no longer thirsty–where we stop saying, “Can I have some more?”
PS. Our little flower girl is graduating from high school this spring! Allie, here’s our prayer for you: “Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” Col. 4:6
