The Kiss

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  “Ryabovitch pulled the bed-clothes over his head, curled himself up in bed, and tried to gather together the floating images in his mind and to combine them into one whole. But nothing came of it. He soon fell asleep, and his last thought was that someone had caressed him and made him happy—that something extraordinary, foolish, but joyful and delightful, had come into his life. The thought did not leave him even in his sleep. When he woke up the sensations of oil on his neck and the chill of peppermint about his lips had gone, but joy flooded his heart just as the day before.” The Kiss By Anton Chekhov (1860–1904)

The Decision

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A railway worker in charge of a drawbridge took his small son to work with him one day. Immediately after a large ship had passed under the up-raised bridge, the worker started to lower it for a rapidly approaching train. As he set the machinery in motion, he heard a scream of pain, and turned to see that his son had fallen into the huge gears.
In split second, the worker realized he had a choice to make: reverse the gears, free his son and wreck the train; or, allow his son to be crushed so the train could pass in safety. As the train roared over the bridge, drowning out the screams of his son, the passengers on the train waived joyfully at the worker, unaware of the sacrifice he had made for them.

In the same way today, so many people go roaring joyfully through life, waving at God, unaware of the sacrifice He made of His Son.

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