People ask me questions all the time. Some of those questions I can answer, some I cannot answer and some I will not answer. I wish people would ask me questions I could answer and look good about it. However, it never happens. 

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage asks me questions all the time. After 43 years, I have finally figured out her questions. Most usually require one word answers. For somebody like me who spends most of his time preaching and writing, boiling an answer down to one word is something that is quite difficult.

The one great thing about my wife is, when she asks me a question, she does not really want an answer, because she already has the answer. I do not know how wives have developed this kind of intellectual mystique. I have just never had the opportunity to ask her. This probably would be the main question I would ask. Sometimes, living in the dark is okay.

Some people ask questions to get information. Some people ask questions to show off how smart they think they are, which, merely proves how dumb they actually are. Do not let them know that I said this, or they may have some questions for me. Then some people ask questions in order to trick you.

Questions are important. Sometimes my friends (both of them), will ask me a question. The primary question is simply, What is a shoofly pie? This is the kind of question I like and furthermore, I like to answer it.

The trouble with a question like this is, where do you begin? With something as marvelous and wonderful as a shoofly pie, where do you start to explain all of its delicacies?

To begin with, a shoofly pie is a slice of heaven. I am quite sure that in heaven at supper time there will be shoofly pies aplenty. I know quite a few Mennonite and Amish women who, I am quite sure, are in heaven, and if they are, they will insist on making shoofly pie. I do not know if it is in their genes, but I do know it is in their aprons.

If anybody has ever had the wonderful opportunity of eating a shoofly pie, they will know exactly what I am talking about. It is hard to explain the experience without your mouth watering so much you need a towel.

To start with, the bottom of a shoofly pie is sheer liquid pleasure. Depending on the woman preparing the pie will depend on how thick that bottom layer is. Once that is laid down, the next layer is a delightful mix of flour and sugar and other secret ingredients. That layer seems to float on top of that liquid pleasure.

On the top is a crust of munchable delight that has absolutely no equal. Then, to set it off, there is a circular crust that holds all of this together in one magnificent pie.

I am not a baker so I do not know how they put all of this together and then put it in the oven and then bring out this awesome, classical dessert known as shoofly pie. Some things are so wonderful that they cannot be fully explained.

Personally, I would rather not spend much time trying to answer the question, What is a shoofly pie? I would preferably utilize that time delving into eating a shoofly pie. That is my greatest delight.

Recently I indulged this marvelous delight in the center of shoofly pie country. Everybody knows that to be Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

A conference was going to be there that I wanted to go to but I had many things that prohibited me from going there. All I could think about was the wonderful shoofly pies I could indulge in if I went to that conference. So, I worked hard to eliminate everything that would keep me from going there. Some things are, indeed, worth fighting for.

About a month before the conference was to start, I had dealt with the final obstruction and was able to make plans to go. All I could think about was, “Shoofly pie, here I come.”

As soon as my flight landed, I hurried off to the nearest restaurant and indulged in my first slice of shoofly pie for the weekend. I am happy to say it was not my last piece.

At the conference, they had breakfast, lunch and dinner and for dessert, even at breakfast, was shoofly pie. I cannot tell you how many pieces of shoofly pie I ate, for the simple reason I cannot count that high without taking off my shoes. A slice of shoofly pie highlighted every meal. I am happy to say that they had more shoofly pie at this conference than I could consume although I did my very best, I assure you.

I know that life sometimes has its hard paths and things can become very difficult. That is why we need to have something to really look forward to.

The writer to the Hebrews understood this when he wrote, “Looking unto Jesusthe author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).

Celebrating the delicacies of life enable us to survive the adversities of life.