Without God, despairing, she had gone to the railroad tracks and thrown herself in front of a train. After a long while, when consciousness returned, she found herself lying in the hospital. She looked around the strange room, then tried to rise. A terrible shriek burst from her, a scream of despair. Both of her legs had been cut off by the train!
For days her cries and groans filled the hospital, and she could hardly be quieted even by sedation. A Christian nurse was given charge of her. The nurse cared for the poor woman, in a quiet way, loving her and praying for her.
At first the poor invalid would pay no attention to her, but the nurse waited on the Lord to open the way to speak to this despairing soul. The moment came at last. “Oh, my feet! My feet! Why did I wake? Why didn’t I die on the track? Why? Why?” After a pause: “Now I’ll never walk again, never be able to go where I want. I’ll be a cripple, eternally fastened to a bed.”
Going Through the Roof
The nurse came to sit by her and gently held her hand. The unhappy woman was quiet for a moment. “Where did you go when you had good feet?”
The patient looked up and said, “In the morning to work.”
“And then?”
“After work I went home for my supper, and then walked the streets and met my friend…” She began to cry brokenly.
“And then?”
“Then we would go to a party.”
“And then?”
She tried to raise herself and said in pain and despair, “I strayed somewhere! Anywhere! I livedon the street.”
“And if you had feet today?”
She wept some more. “It was the only life I knew. But now I’ll never walk again―never―never―”
The nurse gently touched her hot, feverish hand and said, “There is one way you can still travel, and it’s the best and most glorious way. If you had good feet possibly you wouldn’t think of going this way.”
“What did you say, Nurse?”
Now the nurse told her of the way the man with palsy went through the roof straight to the Lord Jesus and how he had his sins forgiven.
The invalid didn’t speak; she allowed the nurse’s words to carry her, in thought, through the roof to Jesus. That night she couldn’t sleep; she was thinking of the way, the only right way, that even those without feet could travel.
The next evening the nurse was on duty again. The sick one was eager to hear more of the Saviour of sinners. And the nurse was glad to respond, “I came to Jesus also, and He is mine and I am His.” Then the moment came when the invalid too came to Jesus saying, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
“When He [Jesus] saw their faith, He said…Thy sins are forgiven thee.” Thus she also, without feet, learned to travel the way to heaven. After this, in telling her story she would say, “It’s most beautiful this way, more so than wherever I‘ve gone before.”
Now she tells others how she came to Jesus without feet, and how happy she is in traveling the narrow way. And she has become a guide for many to the Saviour. Though she has no feet, she has a heart for the Lord. It is cleansed by the precious blood of Jesus.
Many have good feet, but stray away from the Saviour. Do you?
Adapted from Living Waters.
