OUT TO PASTOR: It was an apple fritter kind of week

Have you ever had a week where everything went exactly as planned?

Neither have I.

I start every week about the same. I meticulously prepare my weekly to-do-list. This is not to be confused with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage’s honey-do-list.

My weekly to-do-list is a very important part of my week. I chronicle everything needing accomplished during the week along with appointments with people that I need to see. With the religious ferocity of the Pharisee, I follow this list throughout the week and dutifully check off each item as it is completed. Then, Saturday evening I can look back with a great deal of satisfaction and see what I have accomplished.

Unfortunately, I can also look back on my list and see what I have not accomplished this week. With a deep sigh, I carry these items over to next week’s to-do-list.

Then last week it happened. Something I had feared for many a year.

Tuesday morning, I looked around for my to-do-list and the more I looked, the more elusive it was. I took a deep breath, trying to keep panic at bay because I knew that would not help me. Verging on frantic, I began searching the house.

“What are you looking for?” my wife asked. “Maybe I can help you find it.”

Now, I faced a very deep quandary. Do I confess to my wife that I lost my to-do-list? Or, do I forge ahead on my own hoping I will find it myself. Life is full of these deep, dark quandaries.

Finally, I confessed I had lost my to-do-list. Then she said, “Where did you have it last?”

If I knew that, I thought to myself, it would not be lost. I mumbled something along the line that I could not remember.

“You didn’t have it in your shirt pocket, by any chance?”

Of course, I always have it in my shirt pocket. I never go out of the house without my to-do-list in my shirt pocket where it is readily accessible to me.

“You didn’t have it in the shirt pocket of the shirt you put in the laundry yesterday, did you?”

With that, she went to the washing machine, which had just finished its cycle and pulled out some of my shirts. She found a shirt with something in the pocket.

“Oh, here it is, in your shirt I just washed.” She pulled it out and began unfolding it and with a tone a little more sarcastic than I appreciate, she said, “My, your to-do-list is nice and clean.”

With my to-do-list expunged, I had no idea what I needed to do for the rest of the week. It was then that I came up with a solution. If I do not know what I need to do this week, I will do the one thing I have been putting off a little too long.

I went to the Publix bakery and ordered myself, not one, but two Apple fritters. One for myself and one for my guilty conscience. That should teach someone a lesson.

Just when you think everything is going your way, something happens to prove otherwise. A verse in the Bible says this, “Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

Thankfully, I always have a backup plan. Nothing takes my mind off the contingencies of life like a warm, freshly baked Apple fritter.

Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with his wife in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.