Laughing In The Pits

Laughing in the Pits

Sarah declared, “God has brought me laughter. All who hear about this will laugh with me.”

Genesis 21:6

When we received an invitation to attend dinner with new church friends, we were asked to bring a fruit salad for twenty-two people.

Watermelons and a bevy of other fruits were purchased. Someone (whose name is not being used, to protect the guilty) decided that because children would be in attendance, we could cut the watermelons in half, hollow out both pieces, save the melon to eat, place cherries in one end, and use the other to capture seed spittings.

The morning of the party we went to the sand dunes and returned home with limited time to get ready to leave for dinner. I finished my shower and found the watermelon more mauled than sliced.

With no time to waste, we grabbed the fruit, threw it into plastic mixing bowls (our only options in our furnished apartment), and then in plastic shopping bags for carrying, and jumped in our filthy car.

On the way, panic set in. What if we were attending a formal dinner party? Gasp! By now our son was contemplating exiting the moving car. Surely Martha Stewart would shudder in disgust at our redneck version of a fruit salad.

In a sweat, we hightailed it to the nearest grocery store and bought nice platters and several “real” fruit salads. In the parking lot, we assembled a new, more dignified creation by hiding our mauled melon pieces on the bottom.

We arrived at the host home—an absolutely stunning, huge, gorgeous home with pool and veranda, overlooking a lake with waterfalls. Can you imagine the response if we had walked in with our plastic bags and hollowed-out watermelons and had suggested a cherry-spitting contest?

Later, that evening—home safe and disaster averted—we laughed until our insides hurt.

—Lisa Buffaloe

Father, thank you so much for laughter! Thank you for saving us from making pitiful mistakes. And thank you for forgiving us when we go ahead and make the mistakes anyway. What would we do without you, Lord? Amen.