By Charles Towne
There was that time I went canoe camping for about two weeks in the upper peninsula of Michigan with some friends.
For the first few days it was wonderful.
The weather was ideal, and the fishing was beyond great! In fact the bass were so big we didn’t have to exaggerate (read lie) when we bragged about how big they were. And then the weather changed, and it began raining.
And it rained, and it rained, and it rained!
After about four days we packed up all of our wet camping gear, loaded our canoes, and called it quits, and headed home.
When we got home my buddy dropped me off and went to his home several miles away.
About a week later he dropped off my still wet sleeping bag and rain soaked gear and went his nefarious way.
It was only then, as I opened my sleeping bag that it struck me! What struck me you might ask, the stench! I will never forget the rotten stench that crawled out of my putrid sleeping bag!
When we had packed our rain soaked gear I had hurriedly shoved the clothes that I had been wearing for the previous few days into the bottom of my wet sleeping bag with the intent of drying everything out when I got home, but; as the old saying does: “the best laid plans of mice and men oft times go awry” is so true.
When I opened my still wet sleeping bag the smell of rotten hiking socks and putrid under shorts struck me with a vengeance!!! That smell was horrible! Pew, yuck, gag a maggot nasty!
The only hope for that sleeping bag was to send it to its final resting place in a hole in the back yard. Oh well, and from such stuff do we hopefully learn.
What you might ask can we learn from my we sleeping bag experience? One thing I learned after thinking about it was not to ignore my friends because when a friendship starts to smell bad you can’t realistically bury it in the back yard!
Dear Heavenly Father, please help each of us to value others as you do. As your word counsels us so wisely, “If you would have friends, you must show yourself friendly.” In Jesus’ name we ask it, Amen.
