This story was inspired by real events, although it is a true work of fiction.
Today I want to tell you all a story that was told to me by a very special Grandmother, her name is Grandma Wood. One day Grandma Wood was taking care of two small boys; Sean Patrick and his cousin Yvan. Grandma was in the kitchen baking cookies for the boys and watching them out the window over her kitchen sink between shuffling the batches in and out of the oven. As she watched Grandma stitched a sampler, she was trying out a new pattern for her web site.
Sean Patrick and Yvan played among the trees, rocks and bushes of the back yard; they were a little more rough and tumble than Grandma had seen them when she watched them before. Part of their play included wrestling Jata, Grandmas dog. They would pretend he was a bull and they were going to rope him. Yvan played real rough with Jata and made him howl, whine and run away to hide; he snuck in the doggie door in the laundry room and ran to hide under Grandma’s bed.
Sean Patrick and Yvan continued to play rodeo among the trees and rocks when Yvan decided to rope Sean Patrick. The rope hit him in the face and sacred Sean making him fall down on his knees. Sean went crying into Grandma’s kitchen with bruised knees and a swollen eye from Yvan’s rope trick. He was crying he ran fight into Grandmas legs which were shrouded in her long apron. Sean Patrick hugged Grandma’s knees and sobbed until she picked him up in her arms to see the extent of his wounds. She wiped his tears and bandaged his knees and sat him on the couch to wait for her return.
Grandma went to the back door and called Yvan inside to sit down for a time out. She explained to him that it wasn’t nice to hurt other people or even our pets at any time. And playing rough in the backyard should never cause us to make others cry. Yvan listened to Grandma Wood and said he was sorry to Sean Patrick and to Jata. Then Grandma Wood told the boys a story about when Jesus lived in Israel. Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead, he even gave sight to one who was born blind. But the boys liked the story of the Lost Son best.
This boy had taken his part of his family fortune and moved away from home. In a far away city he made many friends with all of his new wealth, but when the money ran out, so did all his friends. Then there came a famine in that country and our boy had no money, no food and no friends. So he went job hunting in order to eat and stay alive. But the only job he found was on the farm of a Pig Herder. He carried slop and pods out to the corrals where the pigs were penned up and dumped the slop and pods in there troughs; [the NIV say that he fed them corncobs with their slop] and he would have eaten them right bedside those pigs to keep from starving to death. When this son got to thinking and got tired of his grumbling stomach he decided to go home. He practiced the apology speech he would give to his father all the way home.
When this boy was down the road from his father’s house, though it was still a long way off; his father was standing in the road watching for him. That father saw his son when he was barely a dot on the top of the hill several miles away. As he came closer the father ran down the road to meet him. When they met in the road the father hugged the stuffing out of his son. This made it very hard for him to recite the speech he had worked on during his long walk home. When father and son had come into the yard the father ordered them to clean and dress the son in his best clothes and to kill the calf he had been fattening up for a feast. They were going to celebrate his son’s return, for he had been as good as dead until he came home. Grandma explained to the boys that when people were being celebrated many times they would pour olive oil on their heads to honor them. This made the boys laugh. Sean Patrick said, ‘maybe now the boy would be good now since he had oil poured on his head.’
After story time Grandma let the boys go back outside to play. While they were playing tag that afternoon Yvan was a much better boy. He didn’t try to hurt Jata or Sean Patrick any more. At dinner Sean Patrick told Grandma Wood, momma and papa about Yvan being a better boy. Then he said, ‘I think Papa Jesus poured some good boy oil on Yvan just like the father in the story did to his son.’ This made all the grown-ups smile for it was simple, but oh so true!
Are you covered with the ‘Good Boy / Good Girl Oil’ of Jesus?
Memory Verse:
You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."
Hebrews 1:9 NIV
0 comments:
Post a Comment