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The Cheese Stands Alone When elementary school meets real life by Gloria Reed Let me set the scene ... it's more than a decade ago when I'm sitting with 10-15 fellow six-year olds on what was dubbed the "magic carpet." I am vaguely excited about music time when the teacher leans over in the small blue plastic chair to slip the cassette tape into its player and presses play. A faint scratch of white noise for a few seconds before the melody begins to play the familiar nursery rhyme "the Farmer in the Dell." I hope you didn't miss out on this superb little ditty and if so ... I would encourage you to Google and enjoy as you will undoubtedly be swept away. The lyrics meant nothing to me then and continued oblivious to me until the end of high school when I was nick-named "the cheese that stands alone." While the idea of being associated with a block of Cheddar or even Colby Jack could actually be appealing, I always pictured the cheese to be smelly and probably a little too aged for good measure. I wasn't a cheese that was excluded or pushed into the back of the refrigerator as you are probably assuming, but the other "cheeses" seemed to gravitate toward more frequently traveled arenas. Too vague? Let me temporarily drop the cheese analogy and just give it to you straight. In high school, I was a pretty well liked individual, happy, go-lucky. Okay, so I traveled to the beat of a different drum ... but everyone was pretty much okay with that. I was voted class clown for Pete's sake! I was a member of what we called "The Fabulous Four" — four best girlfriends who spent as much time together as possible. We were ON FIRE for the LORD!!! He seemed ever present in our minds, in our hearts, on our lips ... and thus we often hung out together forgoing many of the parties and hang-outs because we weren't interested in "the dark underbelly." Well, I THOUGHT we weren't interested ... I wasn't interested. Turns out, the others — they became interested. As the years of high school continued, one by one of "The Fabulous Four" found another vice more fabulous — boys, drinking, lying, and eventually drugs. Senior year, it was just me. My salvation experience was different from theirs, who grew up in Christian families. God saved me when I was just starting down a dark and crooked path, in a family of Atheists and Agnostics. My salvation was nothing short of one of Christ's miracles. The God I serve is so big I wouldn't even dream of trying to comprehend why He kept me so close to Him through high school and the falling away of those strong Christian sisters. I was ... the cheese that stands alone. When I think back to that senior year, I have mixed emotions ... God brought me through the fire and molded me into a vessel with more purpose and more beauty, but that fire sure did burn. The cheese withstood the flames, but came out looking less like the cheese that stood alone and more like the woman of God that He created me to be. So I guess we could say that the cheese never stands alone. Christ carried me through that senior year, and while I always pictured that isolated, stinky chunk of cheese, Jesus saw something beautiful, full of potential, and worthy of love. Be joyful in the lonely cheese moments when He molds, shapes, and redefines us into someone pleasing and acceptable to Him. I give thanks to God, my precious Farmer in the Dell, for my loner cheese days, and I am encouraged by the verses below and will hold them dear when Christ calls me to enter into my next cheese phase. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 3:3-5) Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:3-4) The Farmer in the Dell The farmer in the dell The farmer in the dell Hi-ho,The derry-o The farmer in the dell The farmer takes a wife The farmer takes a wife Hi-ho,The derry-o The farmer takes a wife The wife takes a child The wife takes a child Hi-ho,The derry-o The wife takes a child The child takes a nurse The child takes a nurse Hi-ho,The derry-o The child takes a nurse The nurse takes a cow The nurse takes a cow Hi-ho,The derry-o The nurse takes a cow The cow takes a dog The cow takes a dog Hi-ho,The derry-o The cow takes a dog The dog takes a cat The dog takes a cat Hi-ho,The derry-o The dog takes a cat The cat takes a rat The cat takes a rat Hi-ho,The derry-o The cat takes a rat The rat takes the cheese The rat takes the cheese Hi-ho,The derry-o The rat takes the cheese The cheese stands alone The cheese stands alone Hi-ho,The derry-o The cheese stands alone