Reflections By Dr. Richard Reed

I was with a group of adults one day and we were talking about our mothers. For each person in the group our mother’s had died and so we were reminiscing. We had some touching and wonderful stories to tell, and then the conversation wound around to other mother stories. One of those stories was about a man named Richard Fairchild who tells the following from his childhood.

When I was a kid I remember a time when my mother decided to make up some chocolate nut fudge or something very tasty like that. She had all these wonderful ingredients assembled on her kitchen counter and all these lovely smells wafted around the room, and she was busy whipping something up on the stove.

I checked it out — and discovered that it was a pan half full of this lovely chocolate sauce and so I did what all normal children would have done — I asked for a taste. Mother told me that I could have some when it was ready — but I of course put on a sad little face and said, “Just a little taste please!?”

She then told me I wouldn’t like it but I didn’t believe her — I mean, what was there not to like — lovely chocolate sauce — just a little spoonful — and so, relenting, she gave me a taste.

It was awful. It was bitter. It wasn’t like chocolate at all. Yet it looked like chocolate and my mother assured me, as she laughed at my puckered-up face — that it was all chocolate and nothing but chocolate. And that was the problem with it: It was nothing but chocolate. It lacked something very essential to make it taste really good: It lacked sugar.

“Though I have all chocolate, but have not sugar … I am nothing …”

Richard Fairchild learned an important lesson that day. Not everything in the world is as it appears to be. Not everything in the world that looks good, is good. Not everything in the world that smells good is good for you. Not everything in the world that we desire, should we possess. I think the most important lesson he learned that day concerned his mother. His mother really did love him and want to protect him, but she was also willing to let him learn and grow, even if the lesson was unpleasant. How wonderful to remember that at the hands of the parents who have loved us and cared for us, we can find lessons of life and faith that last a lifetime.