Sarah crouched in the garden and the summer breeze ruffled her short blonde hair as she scooped out a small hole in the damp dirt with her right hand. The petite four-year-old opened her left hand and carefully placed a single Cheerio in the hole. She studied it for a moment before burying the small piece of cereal in the dark soil. For good measure, she planted two more Cheerios nearby. She liked to help Daddy in the garden, so planting was nothing new. These particular seeds were new, though. Unbeknownst to their father, Sarah’s older sister, Beth, had informed her that Cheerios are actually doughnut seeds and grow into doughnut trees when planted.
Days after the planting, Sarah returned to her future doughnut orchard and saw nothing growing above the ground, so she dug up the Cheerios to look for sprouts. Sarah’s disappointment and disillusionment at being duped by a devious six-year-old left a lasting impression on her. She became a little more skeptical and, together with Beth, began to test what they were told. Since they saw a plethora of claims and promises on television commercials, started trying them out over the course of several years.
First, Sarah and Beth decided to test a paper towel commercial that depicts two rolls of paper towels falling into a swimming pool and absorbing all the water, leaving children sitting on the dry bottom. Since they did not have a pool, the girls filled the bathtub and tossed in two rolls of paper towels. To their disappointment, the rolls just got wet without soaking up much water and Mama scolded them for wasting paper towels.
Then the girls saw a commercial claiming that Vaseline protects baby bottoms from wetness so well that a sieve coated with it will hold water. They coated Mama’s sieve with Vaseline and were thoroughly impressed to find out that it actually did hold water. Sarah and Beth carefully wiped the goop off the sieve, so they never could figure out how Mama knew it was them!
Later, the sisters saw a shampoo commercial where a pearl dropped into a Prell shampoo bottle falls slowly because the fluid is so thick and rich. They did not have any pearls, so Sarah and Beth took turns dropping marbles into the shampoo bottle while the other watched from the side. To their delight, the marbles did fall slowly through their bottle of luxurious Prell. As an added bonus, what was a half-empty shampoo bottle was magically full again when they finished the experiment. Daddy was less impressed, however, and yelled loudly from the shower when he tried to wash his hair with a handful of soapy marbles.
They also watched a fascinating commercial showing that the cotton is attached to Q-tips so tightly that it can hold up a baby in a special carrying harness. The girls did not have a baby or a harness, but Beth came up with an ingenious plan and took her younger siblings to stand on Daddy and Mama’s bed. She ordered their little brother, Perry, to hold onto the end of a Q-tip while Sarah held the other end, then she pushed Perry off the bed. Unfortunately, the results of the experiment were inconclusive – even with repeated attempts – because Perry let go of the Q-tip every time Beth pushed him off the bed.
Decades later, Sarah still tries things out to see if they are true and she has great empathy for the apostle Thomas who did not believe that Jesus came back from the dead. “His name, Thomas (or Didymus), means ‘another one’ or ‘ditto,’ so you know he was a younger brother. His older brothers probably made him plant a doughnut tree, too! Then they say, ‘Hey, we saw Jesus alive’ Do you think he’s going to believe that? I don’t think so!”
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Acts 17:11 NIV
