EACH week, my wife proofreads these columns to make sure that the spellings and the punctuations are correct.
My daughter gave me a book for Father’s Day, entitled “Eats, shoots and leaves”, about correct punctuation.
On the back cover is the story about the Panda who walks into a café, purchases a sandwich, eats it and then he draws a gun and shoots two shots into the air.
The waiter, totally bewildered, asks him “Why?”.
The panda gives him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and says, “I’m a Panda. Look it up”.
The waiter agreed and read, “Panda. Large black and white bear like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves”.
Take out the comma and it makes such a difference.
It can be so easy to say something which can be taken totally out of context by the hearer just by the tone of voice or the words and punctuation used.
On one occasion, Jesus Christ was travelling with his disciples when a blind man in the crowd was constantly calling out for Jesus to stop and heal him.
The crowd were so irritated by the man’s continual choice of words, that they tried to keep him quiet, for to them the blind man had got his punctuation all wrong.
He was upsetting them, but they did not give a thought to the man’s need, but Jesus did, and he healed the man of his blindness.
Whatever our need, God will always listen to our prayers as we come to Him in the Name of His Son, Jesus.
Something to Think About is supplied by Churches Together in Evesham and District
