I know you won't believe this

I know you won't believe this, but there was a time in my life when I was small. It's a long time ago from my current gorilla size of 300 pounds, but amazingly enough I was about the size of Ben Melanson or Liam Mattox. When I was a lad of this diminished stature I had a brother who was three years older and looked about three feet taller than me. More on him in a moment.

Being the last of four kids, it would constantly amaze me that whenever I did anything everyone would know right away. Dad brought home some chocolate covered peanuts and hid them in the freezer, and you know who found them and ate them without asking. Someone used the pasta strainer to catch tadpoles in, bingo. You get the idea. Now, I admit that I did these things and more than a few others that got me a spanking or two. I will also admit that I got away with things like these that I should have got a tanning for. But one day an ugly pattern started to show up. I was getting blamed for things I actually didn't do!

My brother would borrow things from Dad's toolbox, like a pair of pliers, with every intention of returning them. However, he'd leave them out in the yard. Then he'd find them after a few days, rusty and nasty, and put them back. Who got the blame? Guess who! Someone left the refrigerator door open. Someone put black shoe scuffs on Mom's waxed kitchen floor. Someone got my toys out and didn't put them away, and it wasn't me! Hey is this a conspiracy? Nope, my brother!

We had a pond in our yard, with fish and frogs and ducks and snakes and the whole bit. Very cool place to play. And one day, my brother was in the water with his pant legs rolled up trying to catch something. He had his back to the shore. And there was a baseball bat on the bank. And he was bent over, like he was touching his toes. And Randy came up very quiet behind him. And Randy took that bat and raised it over his head. And then Randy brought it down right across his back!

So there I was, tearing across the yard as fast as I could ran with a very wet and very angry brother with a baseball bat in his hand chasing me. I was screaming as loud as I could that he was gonna kill me. Well, Mom came flying out to see the ruckus and before my brother could explain anything she had a hold of him and was giving him the spanking of his life. 1, around the comer of the house, laughed so much my stomach hurt for hours. I never did get in trouble for it, but then he found other ways to make my life miserable and that's what brothers do.

Years later, when we were laughing about this story from childhood, which has become the stuff of legend between us, my brother made a very interesting statement. We were chatting for hours about this and that, and somewhere in our conversation we both remarked how we did eventually grow up and become servants of God. My brother said if he ever left the Lord I should come and give him a swift kick, in fact I could "hit him with a bat ha ha ha." Well, he did. No, I haven't hit him. Quite the opposite, I feel kinda sick inside whenever I think about it. I wish he would have stayed true to God and just hit me across the back with a bat. Truly, it would hurt less.

And I told you this sad story to make this point. There are some who have left the Lord, and they think no one cares. They think no one notices. They think they don't hurt anyone. They could not be more wrong. I have shed many tears over those who left God. We all have. They are all my brethren. And if I as your brother feel this way, just imagine how our FATHER feels.

Randy