Me:  Those are beautiful flowers!

Prodigal:  I agree, I like to garden.

Me:  While you tend to the flowers, I will tell you a story.

 

This is from the book Night Light by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson

 

I’m reminded of a story about an elderly woman who had lost her husband, George, some years earlier in an automobile accident.  Theirs had been a long and happy marriage, and she missed him terribly.  When she suffered a broken leg, she felt more confined and alone than ever.  One particularly blue day, she found herself longing once again for her husband’s company.  She sat in her living room and began to weep.  “Dear God,” she prayed, “please give me the strength to get through this hour.”

Get your Bible, a quiet voice inside her said.  But her Bible was in the bedroom, and, with her leg in a cast, she thought it would be too hard to retrieve.  Then she remembered a small travel Bible on a nearby bookshelf.  She reached for it and turned the pages to find a favorite Scripture.

Suddenly a letter fell into her lap.  She carefully unfolded the yellowed pages.  It was a love letter from George.  In it, he expressed his deep affection for her.  His words of comfort were straight to her lonely heart.

In the back pages of the Bible she found more notes from George.  He had written them in the hospital while awaiting an operation, apparently fearing he would not return home.  After he recovered, the notes were forgotten.

That woman spent the rest of the afternoon basking in the company of her husband’s letters and in the certainty that the Lord cared for her.

 

In his word I put my hope

Psalm 130:5

 

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org