TAKEN OUT BY WATERMELONS
Years ago, I went to the Sultan Centre in Salmiya. This was back in the days when it was the only one in town, and you were still allowed to take your shopping cart up that moving ramp to the second floor. I had gone upstairs after getting some groceries. As I was coming down, I had just stepped onto the ramp when I remembered that I had picked up a huge round watermelon and put it on the rack under the cart. As I stepped onto the ramp, the watermelon rolled off and started rolling down the ramp, gaining speed as it went. There was nothing I could do.
My eyes scanned down to the end of the ramp, and sure enough there was a Kuwaiti women there with her two kids standing right in the line of fire. I just watched as in slow-motion my watermelon rolled down to the end of the ramp and then took out the three of them. It was like I had ringside seats to the whole situation, and only I knew what was happening.
Sometimes we think that God is a little bit like that. He is just sitting in heaven watching as the watermelons of life claim yet another target. Impossible situations come: Why did my spouse have to get cancer? Why did my husband leave me? Why did I lose my job just when things are so tight? Why God do I have to face this impossible situation?
(From a sermon by Stephen Sheane, "Angry With God" 2/23/2009)