Prodigal: I’m waiting on the train.
Me: This can help the time fly.
This is from Doris C. Crandall
Chris Dowell had finished a long weekend of intensive training for volunteering at a crisis hot line for students at Oklahoma University. It is called Number Nyne, and when students feel angry, upset, frustrated, depressed or lonely, they can call and talk to the volunteers. He was going home from work at about 10:00 p.m. the day after he’d finished the course.
Going over some railroad tracks, Chris saw a wheelchair out of the corner of his eye. He drove on to the stop sign on the other side of the tracks thinking, “I wonder what that guy is doing there? He’s sitting way too close to be waiting to cross the tracks. Oh, well, it’s not my problem.”
Suddenly something inside him made Chris change his mind. Putting the truck into reverse, he backed up to the man in the wheelchair. Rolling down the passenger side window, Chris called out, “Hey what’s going on ? Do you need any help?”
The man did not answer, so Chris parked, walked over to him and sat on the ground next to his wheelchair. “I’m just waiting,” the man mumbled.
“What for?”
“A train. Old Jess is going to kiss this world good-bye. Man, I’m paralyzed. I can’t walk and can’t hardly use my arms.”
“You sound really down. What has gotten you so upset?” Chris didn’t try to talk him out of his plans or push him off the track. He knew the next train wouldn’t come until 12:35. He just listened as he told him his troubles. They talked about two hours.
Finally, Jess said he’d changed his mind. “Chris, man, ” he said, “I don’t know if you believe in God, but I do. Before I came to these tracks tonight I prayed, “Look, God, I’m going to the railroad tracks and kiss the first train that comes by. I don’t know if that’s what You want but if it’s not, then send somebody to stop me, and He did. He sent you.”
Chris was astounded. He could see how God had prepared him to respond to Jess. God has done something for someone else using Chris as a tool. “I thank God that I listened when that voice inside my heart said, “Back up and talk to that man.”
Colossians 3:9-10
Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
Jennifer Van Allen
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
