Tuesday, November 29, 2016

stories pt 5


This is part 5 of a series of stories from my life. Earlier posts began a few weeks ago.

I was 16. By this time, I had a growing heart of faith in Christ, but I was also causing my parents some real grief. I was a typical teenage boy.

I purchased a picture from a man who came into the bike shop where I worked. It was a man out on the rocks…a seascape.  It cost about $25 which was a good deal of money for a young man that made $1.50 per hour. I knew that this picture should be my mother’s birthday present on July 19th.

The day came to give her the picture.  Remember, I am a pain in the neck at the time.
She was drinking her morning coffee, sitting in the backyard at the patio table, 4 chairs with a fringed umbrella. She opened the picture just as the sun was coming up over the peak of the house. The edge of the umbrella and the roof-line, cut the sunlight into a beam. The beam of light was fluted by the tassels on the edge of the umbrella. The light looked as though a beam of light was shining from heaven, down upon the man on the rocks.

My mother started to cry. I started to cry. She said, “do you see it?” I said, “I see it.” She said, “that man in the picture is you, and now I know that God will take care of you my son.”

Later in life, when I was going through a rough patch, my mom gave the picture back to me.  She said that I would need to see it more than she did.  The picture has hung in my office for 30 years.  Come by and see it sometime.

It's a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh Jeff, pass the Kleenex. And the beauty of what you shared is that God gives all of us stories, that show His love, if we're transparent enough, like you are, to share them.

God bless.
From WCC