MADE ME LAUGH...

Allow me a personal story.

The Mrs. and I have four sons. Two of them, aged 28 & 25 are grown and on their own. Our 19-year-old son is leaving in a few months. But we have a 12-year-old son, Paul, that will be with us for a while.

Paul is different from the other boys. He suffers from...strike that...He lives with a mild form of autism known as Asperger's Syndrome. It has been one of the most interesting experiences of my life to watch Paul grow up. He is big for his age, and very handsome. It's often hard to treat him like a 12-year-old because he has an innocence at 12 that reminds you of a young child. (The other boys were just plain rotten at 12)

Last night he came into my bedroom and asked me, "Do you know about the Wooly Mammoths frozen in ice?" I have learned to answer his questions with a question, so I replied, "Well, yes I know about Wooly Mammoths, but what in particular?"

"They have found 'em, but there is not enough DNA there to clone them." (The boy loves Science...and Math). So, I asked him "Why in the world would anybody want to clone a Wooly Mammoth?" He didn't respond. I told him that we might be able to use a Wooly Mammoth as a "beast of burden." That lead to a long discussion between us about how different animals come and go...rise and fall...become powerful and then extinct when their purpose on Earth is done.

The discussion came around to me saying, "Well, it's like that we don't need mules to pull plows anymore on farms. We have tractors, and sophisticated equipment for farming." He chimed in "Yes, technology! We have technology, and tractors, and trucks and roads for moving our produce and livestock now." Then he made me laugh when he said, "We don't need no stinkin' Wooly Mammoths!"

The whole discussion was about "change." I began to tell him about my Great Grandmother who died in 1994 at the age of 104. I told him, "Granny Laura was born in 1890. That was before cars, electricity in houses, airplanes, television, or running water in houses. When she died just 104 years later she had flown on airplanes, driven cars, had a nice house with hot & cold water and electricity, had seen man go to the Moon and return, and even knew how to use a microwave oven. Then he made me laugh when he said, "Well, of course she could use a microwave oven. Anybody can do that."

We laughed and talked more about how things always change on the Earth. But then I told him, "Paul, everything changes on this Earth. But there is one thing that never changes, and that is the love of Jesus." I said, "Jesus loves every person in every age, every decade, every century...everyone that ever has lived before, and everyone that will live in the future is loved by Jesus. Jesus' love for us all is the only thing that never changes."

Now, Paul has an odd look when he's thinking things over. He throws his head back, his brow raises, and his eyelids flutter. He did that for a couple of seconds and said, "Humph...musta' got that from his Father." Made me cry...