IF YOU REALLY CARE

Sunday, August 24, 2008

If you like a good story as much as I do--you will love this one:

His name was John Blanchard. He was waiting at Grand Central Station for a girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book he discoverd the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell.

He found out she lived in New York City. He began a correspondence with her and then he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and a month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. He requested a photograph,but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like.

When he returned from Europe they had a meeting scheduled at Grand Central Station. He was to recognize her by the red rose she would be wearing on her lapel.

I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened: "A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. He lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirley forgetting to notice she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a small, provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" She murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away. I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own.

Blanchard looked at the pale, plump face and her gray eyes had a warm and kindly twinkle. He did not hesitate. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love. As he spoke to her he felt the bitterness of disappointment. He introduced himself and asked if he could take her to dinner.

The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. She told him she didn't understand but that the woman in the green suit who just went by begged her to wear a rose in her lapel. And she said if he were to ask her out to dinner, that she should tell him that she was waiting for him in the big resturant across the street. She said it was some kind of test.

The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive.

(Taken and adapted from the book, And The Angels Were Silent by Max Lucado)