My Little Red Knife

I didn't know that I needed a little red knife when, more than a decade ago,
Martha's brother Frank presented one to me and one to all the family members
one Christmas.  I had been ignorantly sailing through life with a pocket that
was devoid of one of the most crucial items anyone could every carry.

And I didn't know it.

Now, if I reach down into my pocket and I don't feel that knife's familiar smooth side and ridges, panic sweeps over me.  Did I lose it?  Is it gone forever?  Where could it be?  Where did I have it last?

My little red knife is multi-faceted. There is, of course, a knife blade.
Then's there's the nail file which sometimes can double as a screw driver or
pry bar.  I particularly enjoy the mini-scissors.  When my wife is forcefully
asserting to me that someone stole her scissors (a rather uncomfortable
experience for me now that the kids are out of the house) I can at least whip
my little scissors out and offer them to her (while I'm trying to think where
I last had her scissors!).  My knife's tools are nicely rounded out with a
toothpick (cleanliness not guaranteed), and a small but effective pair of
tweezers.

Just in the last few months I have used my little red knife to open packages
and letters, cut my fishing line, peel an apple, cut pictures out of the
newspaper, dig splinters out of my finger, loosen a screw, saw through weeds
rapped around my rototiller, harvest broccoli in the garden and remove
something stuck between my teeth (it was an emergency--no time for
cleanliness!)

I even lent it to my brother one day recently when we ran out of minnows on
one of our crappie quests.  He used it to dissect a fish, the dissected parts
to be used for bait so that we would have something to present to the
especially ravenous crappies that day.  On the habitat trip, I performed
surgery on the hand of the local construction committee chairperson who's
finger had become home to what was supposed to be a part of the house.  My
tweezers grabbed that little sliver and restored his bliss.  They grabbed
several slivers that week as well as being used to reform ragged fingernails
torn in the construction process.

People depend upon me.  They depend upon me having my little red knife handy
at all times.  It has become a part of me.  My self image would suffer without
it.  And before it was given to me, I didn't even know I needed it.

My little red knife is a lot like faith.  A lot of people don't know they need
it, but when someone gives it to them, they soon can't figure out how they
ever got along without it.  They begin to carry Jesus' word's and promises
with them all the time.  They're continually reaching into their pocket or
their heart for it.  They find that they depend upon it, and others depend
upon them having it.

I want you to know that my little red knife, like my faith, is in my pocket,
giving me confidence, ready for action at all times.  I can't imagine how I
would get along without either one of them.