Chocolate Bar Dilemma

I was eight years old. My sister Lori was six and Gina was five. Our mother had spent hours coaching us in three-part harmony while we jabbed each other with our elbows, whined, and competed for her attention. Rehearsals were torture. But, despite our bad behavior, our mother was determined to turn us into performers. And now, there was no turning back.

I led the way across the spongy brown carpet spread over the platform inside our church’s large sanctuary. When we reached the piano, we turned to face the congregation. Hundreds of people looked at us: three little pink-faced girls—tallest on the right, shortest on the left—hair in ringlets, wearing homemade dresses decorated with stiff lace and ruffles, our feet clad in white ankle socks and freshly-polished thrift-store shoes.

The pianist played the introduction. We breathed in and sang. Our voices blended, smooth as whipped butter, flowing from our small mouths out into the huge room.

When we stopped singing there was silence. I waited, not sure what we were supposed to do next. We hadn’t rehearsed this part. And then suddenly, all the people sitting on padded pews did something unheard of: They disturbed the Hallowed Sanctuary of God with the racket of thunderous applause.

The pianist rose from the piano bench and held out an arm. She guided us through a side door and into the pastor’s study where Mommy was waiting for us. The music director was also there. The music director complimented us and our mother. And then she gave each of us a full-size Hershey's Milk Chocolate candy bar as a reward for our good performance.

I stared down at the dark brown wrapper, at the silver foil peaking from each end, and felt a rush of joy as I realized that the entire candy bar was mine. Mine. All mine!

But my joy quickly evaporated. I started to feel anxious, not sure how to deal with this unexpected treasure.

We were not allowed to eat in front of other people without sharing, so the option of breaking off a piece of the chocolate bar to enjoy right then was impossible. It was wrong, I knew—probably a sin—but I didn’t want to share. If I waited until the service was over, my other two sisters and toddler brother would see the candy and swarm me, grabbing and whining. And then, of course, there were my parents to consider. No one liked sugar more than my father and mother. They’d be happy to help me eat my chocolate bar. Where was the must-share-with boundary?

I wasn’t sure.

In a Bible story, Jesus fed five thousand people with one loaf of bread and two fishes. But that was a miracle done by the Son of God. A kid like me didn’t have the power to come up with enough chocolate for a crowd.

I considered taking my candy bar home to eat later, but I couldn’t think of how to get it safely there. I didn’t have a purse or any sort of bag to hide it in. There were no pockets in my frilly dress.

Could I hide it in the glove box in our Volkswagen van? No. Someone might open it. Under a seat? There were no seats, except in the front where Mommy and Daddy sat, and that padded bench didn’t have space under it. The back of the van was a plywood platform where six children (very soon to be seven) fought each other for space. There might have been a spot underneath the plywood platform. But locating that spot and finding a moment to stash the candy bar there…well, there were no private moments in my family.

There was only one way I could think of to make this problem go away.

I scuttled down a dark hallway and ducked into an empty Sunday school classroom. In there, I stood with my back to the door and ate the Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar. I ate it quickly before I was discovered and scolded for, as Daddy often said, “acting like a hog.”