SILOAM SPRINGS — “Oh, a kid will eat the middle of an Oreo first and the save the chocolate cookie outside for last.”

Remember that advertising jingle? I never agreed with its implied premise that the best part of an Oreo is the chocolate cookie. I’m rather fond of the sweet creamy middle and was ecstatic when they came out with the “Double Stuff” option. It isn’t a matter of which is better, the chocolate cookie or the white icing middle. The two are better together.

My wife on the other hand, eats the middle first. She does this not because she likes the white icing best, but to put it behind her so she can enjoy what she really likes; the chocolate wafers.

If you don’t like an Oreo’s white middle like I do, and you can’t tolerate the middle like my wife does, you have two choices: Do without or wait for Oreos to be made without the middle.

I guess a third choice might be to find a way to enjoy them. Perhaps you love sweets and that is the only cookie that ever seems to be around.

Maybe life is like an Oreo. Every sweet thing in life — think white icing middle — comes sandwiched between trials, heartaches, and disappointments. We can give up and spiral into clinical depression. We can give up on life until it comes packaged just the way we want it. Or, we can learn how to minimize the parts we don’t enjoy in order to maximize the parts we do.

Most of us are unwilling to wait until everything is perfect to enjoy life. The alternative then is to ask ourselves, “What can I do NOW to enjoy life, even as I hope, pray and work for that more perfect day.”

It is so hard to understand why life happens the way it does sometimes. It’s easy to blame others, even God. Perhaps we feel entitled to a perfect life for some reason. Wanting a life devoid of pain and heartache, however, is not the same as deserving it.

Of course, we are befuzzled most often when life is worse than expected instead of better than we expected.

How many people get upset that they have better food, better housing, better pay, better medical care, and more freedoms than most people around the world including Iraq, Afghanistan, Indonesia, China and Honduras?

The earliest Christians knew those same feelings when they wrote, “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully.” I may not understand now, but someday I will. Keep putting one foot in front of another. Trust that the effort to love God and love others with the help of the Holy Spirit will be worth the effort someday, even if it is not right now.

Timothy, a disciple of Jesus, seems to say this in his second book, chapter four of the Bible. “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day — and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” If you don’t enjoy everything that happens in life you are not alone. We have a choice in how we respond even if we don’t have a choice in the amount of “stuff” that fills the brackets or cookie bookends of our life. What will you do with your Oreo?

— Dr. Randy Rowlan is pastor of First United Methodist Church and comments are welcomed via e-mail at randyrowlan@yahoo.com.

Religion, Pages 11 on 10/07/2009

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