Nov 10
5
Confucius say…
Ever order Chinese takeout? I love the stuff. I love everything from the little packets of soy sauce to the crab rangoons and egg rolls (mmmmmmm…). Also on the list of my favorite things about Chinese food are the fortune cookies. You may laugh when I say that I don’t actually enjoy eating them. I think they’re dry and texturally reminiscent of packed styrofoam. Yuck. So why do I love them if I hate them? It’s all about what’s inside the fortune cookie!
So I got Chinese food a few weeks ago, and along with it (of course) came a fortune cookie. I was preparing for a pretty stressful event at the time, so I was particularly interested (even if only half-seriously) in the contents of said fortune cookie. So with a little hope, I opened the cookie and read the little slip of paper. And do you know what it said?
Of course you don’t.
And I’m not going to tell you. Know why? (Nope, you don’t know that either. But I actually am going to tell you this one).
Because it doesn’t matter what it said. Well, it does to me, because it actually pertained to my situation. It was a little ray of sunshine, a tender mercy, in a time when I needed a little extra support. I fully believe that I got that cookie with that message at that time for a reason. But it won’t mean as much to you as it did to me.
And you know what else I think? I think fortune cookies are a lot like life. I think there are messages of hope, of support, of love and friendship and kindness, all around us every day. They may be hidden by hard, styrofoam-like shells that taste like cardboard (figuratively speaking); we might have to try several times before we find the right ones for us; but they are there. All we have to do is exercise a little faith, crack open the shells, and look inside.
What “cookies” can you open today? What do you expect to find inside?
