Tryin' To Build a Bridge

      Pete, and I, we've been friends like, forever it seems. Well, at least since we were both in diapers, and hey, that’s a loooong time ago.  I sure can’t remember when it started. Like I told you, we’re old buddies, so sometimes I just have to put up with some of his crazy ideas. Like building a bridge out of Popsicle sticks. That idea wasn’t too bad, but the fact that he thought we should each start at different ends was really bugging me. So much so that I started dreaming about it and you know that I’m not the kind of guy that wants to take things home from school and regurgitate them (is that a word?) all night long. But, man, that’s exactly what I did!!

 I’d better scribble it down quick, so I don’t forget. Here we were carefully arranging our puny little sticks to build a bridge that was supposed to you know, actually meet in the middle somewhere! I was building and gluing and carefully building some more, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Pete stealthily sneak a stick from my pile.

“Hey, what did you do that for,” I yelled, “You’ve got plenty of your own!”  Then I noticed some writing had popped up on the stick after he stuck it into his structure. It sure looked like the word ‘envy’, but I just shrugged my shoulders and kept working.  Frustrating thing was the old thing kept falling apart even though we were both using globs of glue. I eyed his from time to time and it sure didn’t look like our bridge was going to meet up properly. Besides his didn’t look as structurally sound as mine, either. Oops, I did just say mine was falling apart, too, didn’t I?

Okay, we’re good kids, or at least try to be, so kept working on it, but then I got alarmed. Smoke was swirling up around our unconnected bridge, and the crazy thing about it, it gave smoke signals. Not the old fashioned kind that the natives used, but real signals, like as in WORDS! I plainly saw the words Smoldering Resentment. Well I didn’t like this dream one bit, so it seemed like a good time to wake up, and start the night over as it were. Problem was I couldn't get to sleep quickly enough, and as I lay awake flat on my back, staring at the glow in the dark stars on my ceiling I got to thinking about something the preacher said.

We need to build bridges between each other. Communication is an awesome type of lumber to use, but it’s not the only thing. We need to rivet it all together with understanding and a huge desire to make things work. My eyes were getting pretty heavy by then, but I figured I’d ask God help me build bridges in the future. Yeah, starting with Pete.