Tag Archives: there is a time for everything

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zv2ROWsWsTY

If Solomon proclaimed there is a time for everything, then its important every now and then to laugh at painful memories from your past.  While I wasn’t laughing at this specific moment, my worst dating nightmare could be a classic comedy movie or at worst a perfect idea for an episode in a sitcom.  This memory began on the first day of school, my senior year in high school.  While trying to memorize my locker combination, an attractive new student wandered down the hall, a couple of lockers away from me.  Before the week was over, I asked her out and she said yes; this was the highlight of my weekend.

A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, Ecclesiastes 3:4.t

Upon arriving at her home to pick her up, I didn’t realize I had asked Marcia Brady out on a date.  Before I knew it, I was being interrogated like a suspect for a crime.  Questions such as “have you had a speeding ticket in the last 6 months” bombarded like a dodge ball game gone bad.  Thirty minutes later, I was set free, but I felt like I was attending a funeral rather than a date.  While everyone in front of me and behind me at the movie theater were cracking up at my jokes, my date never giggled once.  Upon asking if she wanted to go out for ice cream afterward, she replied with another rejection.

One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother, Proverbs 18:24.

A hand shake later, I thought my nightmare was finally over.  Except in the 1980’s, every teenager went to the mall to socialize and people like me worked at the mall.  Thus, while working Saturday, the next evening, my date from Friday night pranced around the mall with her boyfriend.  Hoping I would see them together, she wouldn’t have to explain her cold reception.  Intervening, my best friend Carl distracted me twice after my shift was over to avoid a confrontation, taking me in a different route around the mall.  Despite experiencing a nightmare at the movies, I did find out what a good friend I had and still have today.  Thus, even in disappointment, God will show you who your true friends are when the nightmare is over.

by Jay Mankus