Saturday, March 30, 2013

A BIT OF SERIOUS HUMOR


Jesus had no servants, yet they called Him Master.
Had no degree, yet they called Him Teacher.
Had no medicines, yet they called Him Healer.
Had no army, yet kings feared Him.
He won no military battles, yet He conquered the world. 
He committed no crime, yet they crucified Him.
He was buried in a tomb, yet He lives today.

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THE RICH FAMILY IN CHURCH
By Eddie Ogan

I'll never forget Easter 1946. I was 14, my little sister Ocy was 12,and my 
older sister Darlene 16. We lived at home with our mother, and the four of us 
knew what it was to do without many things. My dad had died five years before, 
leaving Mom with seven school kids to raise and no money.

By 1946 my older sisters were married and my brothers had left home. A month 
before Easter the pastor of our church announced that a special Easter offering 
would be taken to help a poor family. He asked everyone to save and give 
sacrificially.

When we got home, we talked about what we could do. We decided to buy 50 pounds 
of potatoes and live on them for a month. This would allow us to save $20 of our 
grocery money for the offering. When we thought that if we kept our electric 
lights turned out as much as possible and didn't listen to the radio, we'd save 
money on that month's electric bill. Darlene got as many house and yard cleaning 
jobs as possible, and both of us babysat for everyone we could. For 15 cents we 
could buy enough cotton loops to make three pot holders to sell for $1.

We made $20 on pot holders. That month was one of the best of our lives.

Every day we counted the money to see how much we had saved. At night we'd sit 
in the dark and talk about how the poor family was going to enjoy having the 
money the church would give them. We had about 80 people in church, so figured 
that whatever amount of money we had to give, the offering would surely be 20 
times that much. After all, every Sunday the pastor had reminded everyone to 
save for the sacrificial offering.

The day before Easter, Ocy and I walked to the grocery store and got the manager 
to give us three crisp $20 bills and one $10 bill for all our change.

We ran all the way home to show Mom and Darlene. We had never had so much money 
before.

That night we were so excited we could hardly sleep. We didn't care that we 
wouldn't have new clothes for Easter; we had $70 for the sacrificial offering.

We could hardly wait to get to church! On Sunday morning, rain was pouring. We 
didn't own an umbrella, and the church was over a mile from our home, but it 
didn't seem to matter how wet we got. Darlene had cardboard in her shoes to fill 
the holes. The cardboard came apart, and her feet got wet.

But we sat in church proudly. I heard some teenagers talking about the Smith 
girls having on their old dresses. I looked at them in their new clothes, and I 
felt rich.

When the sacrificial offering was taken, we were sitting on the second row from 
the front. Mom put in the $10 bill, and each of us kids put in a $20.

As we walked home after church, we sang all the way. At lunch Mom had a surprise 
for us. She had bought a dozen eggs, and we had boiled Easter eggs with our 
fried potatoes! Late that afternoon the minister drove up in his car. Mom went 
to the door, talked with him for a moment, and then came back with an envelope 
in her hand. We asked what it was, but she didn't say a word. She opened the 
envelope and out fell a bunch of money. There were three crisp $20 bills, one 
$10 and seventeen $1 bills.

Mom put the money back in the envelope. We didn't talk, just sat and stared at 
the floor. We had gone from feeling like millionaires to feeling like poor white 
trash. We kids had such a happy life that we felt sorry for anyone who didn't 
have our Mom and Dad for parents and a house full of brothers and sisters and 
other kids visiting constantly. We thought it was fun to share silverware and 
see whether we got the spoon or the fork that night.

We had two knifes that we passed around to whoever needed them. I knew we didn't 
have a lot of things that other people had, but I'd never thought we were poor.

That Easter day I found out we were. The minister had brought us the money for 
the poor family, so we must be poor. I didn't like being poor. I looked at my 
dress and worn-out shoes and felt so ashamed--I didn't even want to go back to 
church. Everyone there probably already knew we were poor!

I thought about school. I was in the ninth grade and at the top of my class of 
over 100 students. I wondered if the kids at school knew that we were poor. I 
decided that I could quit school since I had finished the eighth grade. That was 
all the law required at that time. We sat in silence for a long time. Then it 
got dark, and we went to bed. All that week, we girls went to school and came 
home, and no one talked much. Finally on Saturday, Mom asked us what we wanted 
to do with the money. What did poor people do with money? We didn't know. We'd 
never known we were poor. We didn't want to go to church on Sunday, but Mom said 
we had to. Although it was a sunny day, we didn't talk on the way.

Mom started to sing, but no one joined in and she only sang one verse. At church 
we had a missionary speaker. He talked about how churches in Africa made 
buildings out of sun dried bricks, but they needed money to buy roofs. He said 
$100 would put a roof on a church. The minister said, "Can't we all sacrifice to 
help these poor people?" We looked at each other and smiled for the first time 
in a week.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out the envelope. She passed it to 
Darlene. Darlene gave it to me, and I handed it to Ocy. Ocy put it in the 
offering.

When the offering was counted, the minister announced that it was a little over 
$100. The missionary was excited. He hadn't expected such a large offering from 
our small church. He said, "You must have some rich people in this church."

Suddenly it struck us! We had given $87 of that "little over $100."

We were the rich family in the church! Hadn't the missionary said so? From that 
day on I've never been poor again. I've always remembered how rich I am because 
I have Jesus!

[forwarded by Willard Caddell, who was a very rich man...RIP]
 
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Do not believe in miracles...rely on them.

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