Watermelon

On Sunday morning, I pulled out the watermelon that Grandpa brought into town when we met to finalize the purchase agreement for the house. I pulled out a paring knife and realized that there could be trouble. The length of the knife blade was less than the radius of the watermelon. It didn't seem likely that I could get a clean cut through the melon. However, I was really eager to sink my teeth into that refreshing, juicy, sweet, fleshy interior of the melon. So I took my short paring knife and plunged it into the exocarp (rind) of the melon and was quite startled. The rind nearly burst entirely apart on its own. I flipped the melon over, repeated, and what was once a whole melon was now two halves. I have cut open many melons before and never had one that just burst open like this. I eagerly sliced off a portion of one half and dug into that wonderful fruit. While eating, it occurred to me that we are kind of like watermelons. We kind of have these exocarps that are hard and tough to penetrate. The exocarp protects the tender interior. Yet, there is this amazing fruit ready to burst through this exocarp - just waiting for something to penetrate right to the heart. The cool thing is that once this rind is penetrated, then there is access to the good stuff and with that good stuff comes seeds - seeds that might fall in good soil and start the whole process over again.

Out.