CRYING ALL THE WAY HOME

Saturday, June 04, 2011

Most, if not all of us, have been hurt when we were young.

Something happened that broke our heart and it took years if not a life time to get over it.

Dr. Margaret Harrell Wills' father had such an experience. He told her about it. Here's what he said:

"I'm going to tell you a story I've never told before. One Christmas, when I was  a little boy in Black Rock, Arkansas, I walked to the Baptist church at the top of the hill. There was a Christmas Eve service, and all the children were supposed to get a present. I didn't know that the presents has been placed under the tree secretly by the mothers of the children. You know, girls, my mother was just a child when I was born, only fifteen. Dad was eleven years older. He always loved Mother, but when she'd get mad, she would take off. That year, she was gone, taken off somewhere with my two little brothers. Well, anyway, there wasn't any present for me under the tree, and I walked home, crying all the way."


Dr. Wills said she held back her tears for fear of losing it all together. But later she wrote her elderly father a Christmas letter and sent him a gift. She told him his Father heard his sad cry and walked with him all the way home. He didn't see Him or feel Him or know that He was there. She reminded him that over the years God had given him gifts a thousand times over more valuable than any he could find under any earthly tree. She told him that his son and daughters respected and honored him and that God is still loving him and seeing him safely all the way home.

When we are hurt as children we feel that nobody cares and that we are all alone.

God cares and we are never alone.  (Romans 8:38)

(From Pressing Into Thin Places--Encouraging the Heart toward God by Margaret Harrell Wills, EdD  I will be reviewing her book on my blog in a few days.)