April 1, 2011
Friday, 8:00 p.m.
Letter #171: This Is Your April Fool’s Day Card
Dear Family,
Happy April Fool’s Day! How awful is it that I didn’t get around to sending each of you individual April Fool’s Day cards?! I blame Hallmark for not giving me a larger selection of AFD cards and merchandise to select from; I’m not the type of guy who will just select any old card to send. It’s all about the meaning for me. And the message has to at least sound like something I could have written myself, if I was smarter, more artistic, female, and worked for Hallmark. And if not written myself, then at least sound like something I would have wished I could have written. Or that someone I know could have hoped I’d wished I’d written.
And I don’t do Helen Steiner Rice poems. For one thing, no one would ever believe I wrote it, they’re so flowery. For another thing, it looked tacky to scribble out her name she always insists must be on the front of any card with her poetry on it. And, her poetry-flowery-candley cards make lame AFD cards. So, thank you, Hallmark and your staff of old ladies who couldn’t put together a decent card for my family and friends on April Fool’s Day. Instead, this rather ordinary, un-April-foolery sheet of paper will have to do.
April Fool’s Day was never celebrated at my house while I was growing up. My mom didn’t want to give us boys any excuse to lie, then cover it up with a weak “Haha! April Fool’s!”
Now, I splurge by limiting myself to only one April Fool joke per year. I get it out early in the morning. (This year, I got my poor cellie to believe he would have to go back to the school program here—which they’d released him from only days earlier.)
King David wrote in Psalm 14:1 that only fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.” The truth of this statement is never more apparent than when someone who is healthy, in their right mind, or well-off says it. How foolish to assume that their health, intellect, or finances come from any other source than God! We have a bit more understanding with people who either hate God or claim there is no God when it seems that life has dealt them a bum hand. Yet we have no excuse for denying there is a God.
Romans 1:19–20 tells how foolish it is for anyone to claim this when “They know the truth about God because He has made it obvious to them. Forever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky … so they have no excuse for not knowing God.”
One troubled young guy told me today that if he was God, he would put a stop to all the suffering. God gave me wisdom to point out that if he was God, he’d never tell his son, Dylan, to die for me like my God did for him. Fools tend to think God doesn’t care … or exist, when their very breath should be enough proof that He does!
You fool who says, “There is no God”
Which really strikes me as quite odd
For to speak at all, so I’ve been taught
Means your words were only once a thought
That formed intelligently in your brain
Which pushed air up and out your main
Hole in your head through teeth and tongue
Where consonants and vowels hung
Becoming syllables and words among
Complete sentences where they were strung
To communicate so others hear—
Yes, all who happens to be near—
Your anti-God words without fear
Of the very God who put you here:
Your Creator God Who’s chosen to
Pour out His grace and love on you;
Though you used the brain He made
To blaspheme Him, He still has paid
For all your sin—its’ why He gave
His Son to heal and help and save.
Take that, Helen Steiner Rice and Hallmark. Happy Atheist’s Day.
Love,
Christopher