Andrew's Duct Tape

Memories of Andrew's (one of our grandsons) duct tape unfailingly bring smiles, and sometimes outright laughter, to those of us who know him.

His duct tape episode occurred some years past, before his entering into the United States Navy where he currently serves aboard the aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson.

Andrew's unflappable, unpretentious demeanor, and his contagious, adventuresome sense of humor, has at the same time endeared him to his family and friends, while establishing him as the one to notice in any group setting without his even trying. Just one of those likable kind of guys.

At this youth camp his sneakers had split open, and this camp was some 70 miles from any shoe store where one could replace them. He said nothing to his mother (our daughter) realizing that there was nothing she could do about it during the camp. Besides, Andrew is one of those "non-whining" young persons.

Duct tape rode to the rescue! Silver sneakers looked so good he did not stop with merely covering the split, but wrapped the entire shoe - sole and all - with duct tape.

Initial laughter by onlookers morphed into admiration (and later into duplication) as he "innocently" displayed his silver shoes in all of the camp services, and became the center of conversation when he gave the same duct tape application to his cowboy boots. As far as I know, he was still wearing his duct tape cowboy boots weeks later when he left for boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. I don't think the Navy let him keep them.

As I say, these memories always elicit pleasant and humorous thoughs of our funny grandson's antics with his ubiquitous rolls of duct tape, but the splits in the sneakers and boots were still there though they were ingeniously covered by strips of duct tape. The "fix" was at best temporary, and eventually re-emerged as bad or worse than ever.

When Jesus fixes our broken and split and torn lives, His restoration is complete and effective. He makes all things new! until not even scars remain!