Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: MIX (10/22/15)
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TITLE: The PCBSS Life
By Cindy Duncan
10/29/15 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
My favorite snack consists of a generous amount of peanut butter spread between two crackers, then dipped in white chocolate. My brother, who is particularly fond of these treats as well, gave them the name of PCBSS a few years ago. It stands for “perfect combination between sweet and salty”. I knew they would make a great gift to take to my friend Martha in the hospital, but I didn’t realize at the time that they just might change her outlook on life.
Martha was in the hospital originally because of an infection in her artificial knee. It was so bad that the doctor had to take the knee out and replace it with one made of calcium, which she was not able to put any weight on for at least six weeks. If the infection was gone after that, they planned to do another knee replacement surgery.
During this six-week waiting period, Martha suffered from stomach problems and pneumonia on top of the pain and immobility caused by her knee situation. It was a tough time for her, but it was not her first encounter with health problems. She had suffered many ailments in the last few years, but had come through each one with her uplifted hands praising God. This time, though, she was battling something even worse than her physical problems. For the first time since I had met her, Martha was discouraged.
“Why is God doing this to me?” she would cry out in anguish. “I’ve tried my best to live for him. I just don’t understand,” she would tell me each time I saw her. This visit was no different.
“So how are you doing today, Martha?” I asked.
“Not good,” she replied. “I don’t even know why God has left me here. Why can’t he just take me on home?” She struggled to raise the bed to more of a sitting position so she could visit with me better.
“Well, I brought you something,” I said, as I pulled the bag of PCBSSes from my purse. Normally the sight of them would be enough to put a smile on her face, as she had always shared my weakness for sweets.
“I don’t want any of those. They’ll just make me gain weight, ‘cause I can’t do anything to burn off the calories. I’m probably stuck here in bed for the rest of my sorry life.”
“Martha, have you had any good times in your life?” I asked as I pulled the chair to her bed. “Can we talk about those as we each have just one of these? She frowned at me, and reluctantly took one small bite.
“Of course I’ve had good times, and oh my goodness these are delicious. What in the world are they?”
“My brother calls them the perfect combination between sweet and salty, or PCBSS for short,” I replied. “You know, I like peanut butter crackers, but they are salty, and they make me thirsty. But when you cover them in the sweet white chocolate, the saltiness mixes with the sweetness to create a wonderful flavor.”
“Yeah, I’ve always had trouble swallowing peanut butter by itself,” she said, as she smiled for the first time in weeks. “Like I’m having a hard time swallowing my present situation.”
“But if you combine it with something sweet, it makes it taste better.” I could see in her eyes that she knew where I was going with this, and she decided to go with me.
“I have a wonderful husband who’s been by my side this whole time. I don’t deserve him. He’s white chocolate, isn’t he?”
I couldn’t help but laugh at that analogy. “He sure is, Martha, and you have a lot more chocolate in your life. Your salvation, your children, your church, they’re all white chocolate. But you know, if I eat too much white chocolate all by itself, I start feeling kinda sick.”
“That’s right, probably because you don’t appreciate the sweetness anymore, like you do when it’s mixed with saltiness,” she replied. Martha paused and then said, “Life is a PCBSS, isn’t it?”
“I believe it is, Martha. When the difficult times in our lives are mixed with the sweet times, it makes for a perfect combination.”
“You know what you are?” Martha asked, with the twinkle back in her eyes. “White chocolate.”
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