Talking Vegetables

I am reading a book called Me, Myself and Bob. A True Story about Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables. Its by the VeggieTales creator, Phil Vischer. A friend recommended I get it just to read the chapter on dreams, but I am reading the whole book and find it so fascinating.

He got the vision to create good television for kids when he was a kid watching MTV. He said even though he loved MTV and admitted to liking all the sexy chicks in the videos, while watching Madonna gyrate and sing Like a Virgin, he thought Oh Lord, this isn't good, someone's got to do something about this. He thought about all the kids from sea to shining sea growing up on this. And in that moment he realized he was supposed to do something about it!

And what he was supposed to do was not protest or anything like that, he was supposed to make good, quality, wholesome shows for kids that shared God's love with them. He knew it without a doubt. From there on out that was pretty much the focus of his life. He was very talented and innovative and worked extremely hard. (Veggie tales was actually the first computer animated 30 minute series in the US)

So this excerpt was right after he gave his wife their last 10 dollars to go buy dog food.

The apartment was still and dark. Our daughter Shelby, now 18 mos. old was sleeping in the next room. I couldn't afford to give her health insurance. I couldn't afford to pay her rent. Now I didn't even know how I would feed her.

"You fool," a voice inside me said. "Look at what a mess you've made. No one can rely on you. You can't even take care of your family. And for what? This stupid kids show dream? This thing you think God told you to do?' My eyes welled up with tears as the doubt grew louder."What if you were wrong all along? What if all this wasn't from God? What if all this was just your idea? Just you? Man, would that ever make you the fool of the year!"

For the first time, I doubted. For the first time, I wondered if perhaps, I had made the whole thing up. My "call" - everything. "God" I called out, "tell me this isn't just me - tell me you're in this too!"

Right afterward he ends up noticing a letter sticking out from the pile of bills, hand addressed with no return address. Inside was a cashiers check for $400, with a handwritten, unsigned note that simply said, "God laid it on my heart that you might need this."

He says:

My heart stopped. Four hundred dollars wasn't necessarily going to turn our lives around, but the message was crystal clear. God was there in the room, at the table, with me. He was with me in my darkest hour, when voices were screaming, "Give up! This isn't God, its just you, fool!" There he was. Sitting beside me at the black laminate table in our loft apartment as my daughter slept in the next room and my wife hunted for dog food with our last ten dollars - God was there, quietly whispering, "I'm with you. Don't give up."

: )