Me: Friends are welcome all the time! Thanks for joining us.

Prodigal: Sharing is a way to show you care.

I had only two one-dollar bills in my wallet and they had to last until payday, ten days away. My husband was away on business, and I was at home with our two children conserving every cent.

On Monday my father called to say he needed to attend a union meeting on Friday afternoon. Would I come and stay with Mother? She was bedridden with brain cancer and had to have someone help her with her medicine. I didn’t hesitate to say yes. Back then, in 1970, one dollar would buy enough gas to get there and back, and I would still have an “emergency” dollar left.

All week long my five-year-old kept asking for a treat from the ice cream truck. And each time, I would open my wallet, show her the two one-dollar bills, and explain why we couldn’t afford such a luxury.

When we arrived on Friday, Daddy’s parting words were, “Don’t forget to give Mom her Dilantin,” her anticonvulsant medicine. But after he’d gone I discovered the bottle was empty. I was terrified that if Mother didn’t get her medicine on time, she ‘d go into convulsions.

Mother told me to check her purse and a couple of other places for loose change, but that was all I found–loose change. I telephoned my sisters, but no on was home. The prescription cost over eight dollars. Where would I get that money?

“God will take care of it,” Mother said.

At my wit’s end, I decided to go to the pharmacist’s with my lone dollar and beg him to trust me for the rest. But when I looked in my wallet again, I was stunned.

That single was a ten-dollar bill.

by Esther McIntosh

Psalm 103:2

Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits–

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org