When I was young enough to enjoy swinging on the swings in a city park near our house, I was doing just that with my brother and two sisters when we noticed another family of children swinging, too. My siblings and I had each a roll of “Life Savers,” and we offered some to the other children. “No thanks,” they said. “We don’t eat candy.” “At all!?” asked my older sister. “That’s right,” the other boy answered. Our father is a dentist, and he says that candy is bad for your teeth, so we never eat it!”

I was thunderstruck that these children had apparently never even tasted candy of any kind. For the first time in my life I felt a mixture of pity and incredulity. Candy was one of life’s sustaining joys to me.

For several years when I was growing up, a remarkable event occurred every Christmas Eve. Just before bed time the doorbell would ring, and a man who was a cousin of my father, would hand my mother a five pound box of chocolate candy, and say, “Merry Christmas!” and turn around and disappear into his car and drive away. My mother always invited him in, but he declined. We were allowed to eat one piece of candy before we went to bed. It was a much anticipated ritual and we all loved it.

When we met the dentist’s children in the park, I was shaken to the core to think that my love for candy might possibly have a down side. It opened a window into a different world. The other children seemed to think nothing of missing out on one of life’s truly delightful treats, and I couldn’t even imagine life without candy. It was a kind of reset in my sense of values, or at least the beginning of a reset.

Jesus said, “If any man comes to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and children and brethren, and sisters, yes, and his own life as well, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:16) It is one of the strongest statements Jesus made about our human relationships and loves. It’s strength is startling and even upsetting, but Jesus thought it necessary to emphasize the size of change and the depth of commitment that was not only possible, but necessary in our relationship to our Father God. In his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus made possible just such a level of devotion to his God and our God. Since then, the saints have displayed the reality of such a relationship. Saint Peter wrote, “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. (1Peter 1: 23)

God knows how hard it is, and, better yet, how worth it.

Love in Him,

Prue