CHRISSY the mill-girl lay sad and weary in the accident ward of a hospital. One of the machines had caught her hand and sorely bruised it, and for many days she had suffered pain. All her worldly companions were far away, and the sinful pleasures she had loved she could no longer enjoy.
Once a week a band of Christian girls came to the ward and sang hymns, and sometimes left a booklet or a text card with each patient. The story they gave Chrissy told of one like herself who had been converted in early days and became a missionary to the heathen in Africa. Chrissy had thought that missionaries were all well-to-do ladies, but the story she had received was about a humble mill-girl, saved first, and afterward serving Christ in her lowly sphere. The Lord sent her forth later to a far-off land to win weary ones there to the Saviour.
Chrissy became deeply interested, not so much in the missionary story now, but in the matter of her own, salvation. She had been a sinful girl and her fear was that she was too bad to be saved. How she longed for the singers to come again, and she hoped they might bring her another story or something to show her more fully the way of salvation.
One evening the group of Christian girls came again, and this time they had brought a few bouquets of spring flowers with a gospel text tied to each one, not only to cheer the invalids but to point them to the Lord Jesus as well.
Chrissy's bouquet was of white water lilies, mixed with bright crimson anemones, and the text around it was, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Isaiah 1:18.
Chrissy looked at her flowers—they were so beautiful—and read her text over and over again, until it was written upon her memory and heart. The crimson flowers contrasted with the white, and spoke to her soul, making the text plain and simple. Day after day she repeated the words and looked at the crimson and white flowers. When the visitors next came to Chrissy's bedside she could tell them joyfully that through the blood of Jesus her crimson sins were now washed white as snow.
Dear reader, your sins may be washed away too, if you trust the precious blood of Jesus.
"The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John 1:7.
Messages of the Love of God 5/11/1952