Life without God's love...is like a donut...'cause there's a hole in the middle of your heart.

If you knew me when I was 9, I have two words for you: Donut Hole. If you didn't know me when I was 9, Donut Hole was a Christian video "series" (pretty sure there were only two...and only one of them was good...) made for children in which a gaggle of children (the majority of whom were from the same family, there were like 12 kids with the same last name) acted out skits and sung songs to tell Bible stories. I, along with my friends and sister and sister's friends, watched these Donut Hole videos like they were the latest Hollywood Blockbusters, and even put on our own Donut Hole production at the Turnpike Road Church of Christ in Santa Barbara, California. (Oh, how I wish YouTube existed back then!) I knew the songs from Donut Hole backwards and forwards, and as was evidenced today during one of my reading sessions, apparently I still do?

As I was reading and talking with one of my readers, who is extremely intelligent and does not believe the way of Christ is the only way...if a way at all, we began talking about an idea called positive thinking. He told me that he believes in positive thinking, where when he thinks positively about his life, positive things will happen. I asked him if he had ever considered the possibility that, in those positive things that happen, could God be trying to get his attention? (I know...HUGE limb...but I decided to venture out on it...) So we talked about this idea further, and I remembered the story of Paul's conversion. Paul, I explained, the most famous of all apostles in the world (my current residence in Natal is named after him...) began his career by persecuting Christians. Then, one day, on the road to Damascus, God got his attention in a BIG way. (Acts 9) The only problem was, however, that as I was telling this story, I was forgetting a LOT of details. Without my Bible there, I tried to remember what I could of the story, when all of the sudden an image popped into my mind from the Donut Hole video with the words "Saul! Saul! Saul! Why do you hurt me?" (repeat 3 times.) By playing the story from the video through my mind, I was able to tell my reader the story of Paul's conversion.

I also vividly remember that really the main reason I watched Donut Hole so much was because I had a small (ok, huge) crush on the boy who played Ananias in Paul's conversion story. I attribute my vivid memory of the story to my crush, as I watched and rewound that particular skit many, many, many times to squeal and giggle over how cute Ananias was. As a precocious 9 year old, I also went to find the story in my Bible. Imagine my surprise when I actually found a story about a different Ananias, and rather than helping Paul to become a believer, this happened: "Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife's full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles' feet. Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn't it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn't the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God." When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then the young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him." -Acts 5

Ok, so apparently Ananias was a common name back in the day. But I will never again say that those kinds of videos don't work, and I will always be wary to condemn an innocent crush. Mine taught me the Bible, and lasted 13 years... :).