<TITLE>03. Par 7-10</TITLE>L-7 Must have been a cold November morning. He was late. He'd had a bad night: dreamed all night long that he could see again. He woke up late, kissed his wife good-bye, and his little girl, and went feeling his way along the street to find the gate entrance. Because he was late...
There's many beggars in the land in that day. And there was so many beggars, till the people that could help support them would just have maybe a coin a day to give to a beggar. Many of them was lepers, and blinds, and twisted, and... Oh, it was a horrible sight.
And the first one the merchant met, or whoever was able to give, why, gave his coin, and that settled it for the rest of the day.

L-8 And Bartimaeus was late. And he'd had a--dreamed all night long that he could see again. And his heart would been thrilled because he could think back of how things looked. He'd been blind for twenty something years.
So he was late. And his only hope was to go over to the gate and wait there. Maybe some merchant coming in late might have a coin for him. And that's the way he--he had to live.
And there was no one coming, so he goes over and finds him a rock where the sun is warm from after his bare feet had left the cobblestones that led into the great big arch, the gate of the city of Jericho. Some of the old rocks was still laying around from the ruins when it collapsed and fell in the days of Joshua. Morning sun was rising slowly, and the winds were blowing down across the Judaean hills. And he was ragged and poor. And he was wondering what he would do for his winter's wood, and for--to survive through the winter for his family.

L-9 And as he set down on a rock, hooked his rags around him and wrapped up the best he could, and the warm sun begin to shine, he kinda went to dreaming, daydreaming, thinking, "What a dream I had last night. Oh, if it could only be true, that I could see again."
And as he set there, he begin to think of the days when he was able to see. That had been many, many years for Bartimaeus. He remembered as a little boy, how he used to run over the Judaean hills there in the early spring, and the little buttercups and--and flowers of the spring would come up. And he would grab those little flowers and look at them, and how pretty they were. And his eyes would look towards the skies when he'd lay down on the warm sun bathed grass, and look up towards the heavens, and the blue skies, and the white clouds floating by. Oh, what a privilege sight is to a person.

L-10 But alas, that was long ago. And how he used to go and run, and heard his mother set out on the front porch and call his name, sweetly and softly, "Bartimaeus, it's nap time for my little boy." And he would rush up to his mother, as she set on the front porch, and sang the hymns of the Psalms to him, and tell him Bible stories until he would fall asleep in her arms.
How, setting there now, as an old man, withered, hunched in the cold, he'd think of that pretty Jewish mother, her eyes just as sparkly. How she used to brush the hair back from his little baby forehead, and say, "Oh, you have such pretty little brown eyes, my boy." And he remembered some of the Bible stories then, that she used to tell him.
I tell you, the thoughts of a good Christian mother, is a treasure to a human heart that's never forgotten. God, give us more mothers that'll take their children, and instead of trying to teach them tap-dancing, and something to ruin and wreck their life, will read the stories of the Bible to them and tell of them of the God of heaven and peace. God knows that we need that above all things now for motherhood.


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