Prodigal: Achoo!

Me: Here is something for that runny nose.

Prodigal: Thank you!

This is from Corrie ten Boom

One morning while a prisoner at Ravensbruck, Corrie ten Boom awoke with a bad cold. Back in her homeland, with a hankie to use for blowing her nose, she would have easily adjusted to the infirmity. But in the concentration camp, without so much as a hankie, she felt she could not bear her cold and runny nose.

‘Well, why don’t you pray for a hankie?” suggested her sister, Betsie.

Corrie wanted to laugh. There they were imprisoned in a camp where thousands of people each week were being executed or put through unbearable suffering. “And Betsie suggests I pray for a hankie!” she thought. “If I were to pray for anything, it would be for something big not something little like that.”

Betsie, however, immediately and simply prayed: “Father, in the name of Jesus I now pray for a hankie for Corrie, because she has a bad cold.”

Corrie shook her head and walked away. A short while later she was standing by the window of her barracks when she heard someone call her name. Looking out, she spotted a friend and fellow prisoner who worked in the camp’s hospital approaching her.

“Here you are”, the woman said to Corrie in a matter-of-fact tone as she extended a small package to her. “Take it. I bring you a little present.”

Corrie could hardly believe her eyes when she opened the small parcel–it contained a handkerchief!” “How did you know?” she queried. “Did Betsie tell you? Did you know I had a cold?”

The woman shrugged, then revealed, “I know nothing. I was busy sewing handkerchiefs out of an old piece of sheet, and there was a voice in my heart saying, “Take a hankie to Corrie ten Boom.” So, there is your gift, from God.”

O come, let us sing unto the LORD: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Psalm 95:1 (KJV)

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org