To Illustrate
October 1, 1996
One day, when I was a 14-year-old high school freshman, school was dismissed
early for a teachers' meeting. I conveniently neglected to tell my parents
about the change and arranged to bring my girlfriend over to my house. We
weren't planning to study.
As we were going up the steps, my neighbor, Mrs. Nolan, poked her head out
of a window and said, "You're home awfully early, Jerome."
"Yes, Ma'am," I said, improvising a lame story about how we had planned to
review algebra problems.
"Does your mother know you're home this early," Mrs. Nolan persisted, "and
do you want me to call her?"
I gave up. "No, Ma'am. I'll go inside and call her while Kathy sits on the
porch."
Mrs. Nolan saved our careers that day. If Kathy had gotten pregnant, she
might not have become the doctor she is today. And my father had warned me
that if I made a baby, the mutual fund he set up for me to go to college
or start a business would have gone to the child. I'm glad Mrs. Nolan was
at her window, looking out for me.
Death
Bob Russell, senior minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville,
Kentucky, told this story:
When my father died, there was too much snow at our home in Pennsylvania
to have a funeral procession. At the end of the service, the funeral director
said, "I'll take your dad's body to the grave." I felt we were leaving something
undone, so I gathered five of my relatives, and we piled into a four-wheel-drive
vehicle, plowed through ten inches of snow into the cemetery, and got about
fifty yards from my dad's grave.
The wind was blowing about twenty-five miles an hour. The six of us lugged
that casket down to the grave site. We watched as his body was lowered into
that grave.
I wanted to pray before ...
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