"The
Tablecloth"
This
will give you goosebumps!
(True Story!)
The brand new pastor and his wife, newly
assigned to their first ministry, to reopen a
church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October excitedabout their
opportunities. When they saw their church, it was
very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have
everything done in time to have their first
service on Christmas Eve.
They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering
walls, painting, etc .and on Dec. 18 were ahead
of schedule and just about finished. On December 19 a terrible tempest
-- a driving rainstorm hit the area and lasted
for two days.
On the 21st, the pastor went over to the
church. His heart sunk when he saw that the
roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 6 feet by 8 feet to
fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just
behind the pulpit, beginning about head high. The pastor cleaned up
the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else
to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home.
On the way he noticed that a local business was
having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped
in.
One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory
colored, crocheted table cloth with exquisite
work, fine colors and a cross embroidered right in the center. It
was just the right size to cover up the hole in
the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church.
By this time it had started to snow. An older
woman running from the opposite direction was
trying to catch the bus.
She missed it. The pastor invited her to
wait in the warm church for the next bus 45
minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got
a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth
as a wall tapestry.
The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it
looked and it covered up the entire problem area.
Then he noticed the woman walking down the center
aisle. Her face was like sheet. "Pastor," she
asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"
The
pastor explained. The woman asked him to check
the lower right corner to see if the initials,
EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. These were the initials
of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35
years before, in Austria.
The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor
told how he had just gotten the tablecloth. The
woman explained that before the war she and her husband were
well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis
came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the
next week. She was captured, sent to prison and
never saw her husband or her home again.
The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but
she made the pastor keep it for the church. The
pastor insisted on driving her home, that was the least he could do.
She lived on the other side of Staten Island and
as only in Brooklyn for the day for a house cleaning job.
What a wonderful service they had on Christmas
Eve. The church was almost full. The music and
the spirit were great.
At the end of the service, the pastor and his
wife greeted everyone at the door and many said
that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor
recognized from the neighborhood, continued to
sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he
wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got
the tablecloth on the front wall because it was
identical to one that his wife had made years ago
when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two
tablecloths so much alike?
He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he
forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he
was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a
concentration camp. He never saw his wife or his
home again or all the 35 years in between.
The pastor asked him if he would allow him to
take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten
Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman
three days earlier. He helped the man climb the
three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on
the door and he saw the greatest Christmas
reunion he could
ever imagine.
True
Story
submitted by Pastor Rob Reid.
Who says God does not work in
mysterious ways?
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