<TITLE>05. Par 13-16</TITLE>L-13 "Then I had a... My odds are so against me, I--I... Someone has to leads me home now. I--I don't have no lamb to take me home. I used to have a lamb, and--and it would take me home, and knowed the way back from the gate up to my little cabin, or little shack along the side of the hill that overlooks Jordan. And I... My wife got sick, so I offered God this lamb, if He would heal her. And He did."
"And I'll never forget what the priest said to me when I was going into the temple. He said, 'Bartimaeus, you can't offer that lamb. That lamb is your eyes.'"
I'll never forget just how it struck me; I said, "Well, but God will provide another lamb for Bartimaeus' eyes."
And as he set there, grouped up, and the sun has passed around a little bit, and he kinda got in the shadows, and pulled back out in the sun, and gathered up his ragged garment, set down in another place, and thought he would continue his dreaming, thinking.

L-14 You know I--I like to do that myself. Everyone else does. Sit down, think of it. Some days when you get the kiddies to run off to school, right quick, and fix hubbie's breakfast, and kiss him good-bye, and he's gone for the day, and you get the dishes done up, and then go in and set down and relax, and just get to yourself and think. You sisters, know what that is. And think, "O God, I remember when little Sally was born, and when Patricia was born, how I come near dying, and--and You helped me. You saved me. I--I can remember all those things."
And brethren, you know, sometime when the boss lets you off, and you have a Saturday afternoon, and you get the old fishing pole and a can of worms, and get way back out on the creek bank, somewhere, and set down under the tree, and throw the pole in the water, and get a forked stick, and hold it up, just fold your arms, and get a straw in your mouth, and dream, that's relaxing; that's good for you. We need more of that.

L-15 This blind beggar was doing something on that manner this day. And he was thinking about now, his mind slips back to a little boy, a little Jewish boy, and how that his mother would get up... He could see then. He could look around; he could see the blue skies, thinking, "Oh, wasn't that wonderful? I could look at the skies, and mama used to kiss me, and pat me on the head and saying, 'Why, your eyes are as blue as the skies. They look like the stars that's up there.'"
"Oh, if--if I could only see that sky again, if I could only see that mother again, if I couldn't only see the great swelling Jordan again, if I could look upon... But my eyes are blind; I can't see now. And here I am, a--a aged man, and been blind now for all these years. I remember when I fell, and--and I hurt myself, and put my eyes out. Now, I--here I sit."
"And you know, I remember when mother used to tell me about long years ago, how that someday there would be a great Messiah come on earth, And when He come, He'd be God's great Messiah. And how He would restore the sight to the blind. How the lame would leap like an hart. She told me the prophet Isaiah had said those things, God's anointed prophet. It cannot fail. But oh, that seems to be so far in the future, way past my day."

L-16 "And then, I remember her telling me of how that God Jehovah was with His people down in Egypt. How that they went down there because Abraham, the prophet, had said they would be down in there for four hundred years, how God would bring them out; and great Jehovah God stood for His people. How He beat down the enemy, and how He opened the Red Sea, and He healed them when they were sick in the wilderness. But, oh, my, what a great mighty Jehovah that was that my mother read the scrolls, the old family Bible and told me about it. But alas, they tell me those days are gone; Jehovah doesn't do those things no more. 'The days of miracles is passed.' My priest told me that the days of miracles was passed, so there... I suppose we don't have those things no more. But how I used to enjoy those stories."


<A HREF="P6">Next Page</A>