I Heard A Story

[HARDCORE]

I heard a story some years ago that went somewhat like this:

One day a young man left home. He soon spent his savings and was ashamed to write and tell his parents about his situation. Instead, he robbed a store and was captured by the police. The judge sentenced him to prison for a term of ten years. He learned how heart broken his parents were while he was there. Also he realized his awful mistakes that not only put him behind prison bars, but brought disgrace on the family name. He thought of the grief and sorrow he had caused his parents. During those prison days he thought about life, it?s purpose and meaning.

One day he picked up the Bible his mother had sent to him. He found great comfort as he read in the New Testament. He repented and asked for forgiveness and mercy. He memorized many Scriptural verses and applied them in his daily living. He hated all the mean things he had done and he began to see good in the things he once despised. His mother?s religion and faith took on new meanings for him. Her prayers had reached through the iron bars to his prison cell and he seemed to hear her sweet voice in prayer. After serving for six years, he was paroled. Four weeks before his release, he wrote a letter to his parents. The letter went something like this:

Dear parents,

I know I did wrong. I caused you much grief and heartache. Please forgive me. I will be released from prison within a few weeks. If you will forgive me and accept me back home, I will be there on the first train I can get. So that I may know you do forgive me, put a white cloth on a pole in the yard where I can see it as the train u passes. I will be looking out the train window and, if I see a white cloth, I will know you are welcoming me home. If there is none, I will stay on the train.

The appointed day came and the son notified his parents.

The message said, ?I will be on train number seven. It will pass by there about 3 O?clock in the afternoon next Saturday.?

Finally, on that long awaited day, he took his seat near a window in the pullman coach. The train was running a little later than scheduled. Just as the sun was hiding behind the western hills, the landscape began to look familiar to the young man. As the engineer blew the whistle, thus announcing the train was nearing the his hometown station, the son leaned out the window.

Then, as the train rounded the curve, the homeward bound son saw his old home. There, in the back yard, was a white cloth on a tall pole. Several white shirts and white sheets were on the clothes line and his Mom and Dad were out there too, waving a big white table cloth.

Welcome! Yes, more than a welcome! A wonderful greeting and a wonderful dinner had been prepared. Neighbors were there to add their blessing. A wayward son had returned and was accepted and forgiven. The young man could only softy say ?This is just like a story I read in the Bible. Yes, it was in Luke 15:11?.

All of us have made mistakes. We?ve run away from good and gotten into bad. But if we repent, there is forgiveness. I think on that day when the mystic chariot swings low and we are wafted away to the great beyond, there too, will be white robes of the saints waving in the heavenly breezes inviting us to enter our eternal home where, because of this One we celebrate at Christmas, there will be no grief, sorrow, pain or death.

Written by Ira E. Welker