First-graders have a lot to learn, but I hadn’t missed Mother’s truth: You can take an apple when you go outside, but if you’re with friends, you must offer them some too. I didn’t expect Timmy Cox to come over, but there he was.
“Want an apple?” I said.
“Sure.”
I assumed he didn’t want mine, which already had a big bite out of the side. So I grabbed another apple from the house and gave it to him.
The kid could have won a prize for apple-eating speed. In less than a minute, he consumed the apple, core and all. Why did he eat the core? I was amazed.
I had always thought the core was something to be thrown away. But if it weren’t for the core, we would have no seeds and no apple trees. Without the cores, there would be no apples.
People often ask what I believe, as if for some reason that matters to them. So I had to stop and think about that. What did I believe and why?
To define the most basic aspect of my core beliefs, I would say, “I believe God exists, and my pursuit of him is worth the effort” (Hebrews 11:6).