A LITTLE old woman sat under the shadow of a gate, watching the rice sunning on the threshing floor. She was so small, so thin and shrunken, she seemed scarcely bigger than a child. But her face was marked with many years of toil and suffering, and her limbs were too weak to enable her to frighten away the chickens which were feasting on her rice.
The only thing alert about her was her bright black eyes. They quickly spied two strangers walking slowly through her village. The visitors had almost missed her, She seemed so one with the ground on which she was sitting. But when they caught sight of her they were glad enough to sit down beside her.
It was late November, but when the sun shines, South China is always hot, and the missionaries were ready enough to sit down at the end of their day of wandering from village to village. Everywhere they went, they told the good news that the sin question has been settled and the way to heaven made open.
"What are your wares?" asked the little old lady, taking for granted that the strangers were peddlers.
"We don't need your pence to buy our wares," was the reply. And soon she was listening for the first time to the story of a free salvation.
"'We must all die someday, Grandmother, and if we know the true God, then He will give us true blessing."
"I have often prayed for death, but death does not come. I am so miserable." The tears came and were ..wiped with a corner of her blue coat, as she told of the crooked back, and the aching limbs .which gave her no rest; and of weariness, pain, and poverty.
They told her of a home prepared in heaven, of a God who will wipe away all tears, of the redeemed who hunger no more, neither thirst any more.
"What good fortune," she kept murmuring. "What good fortune! But it could not be for a creature like me. It is too good to be true. And then I am so poor. I have no money to give, not even a bowl of rice-water to offer."
And then they told her of a poor robber, nailed hand and foot to a cross, who received a place in heaven because the Saviour who hung at his side had suffered in his stead. They told of his last words, "Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom," and the answer, "To-day shalt thou be with Me in paradise."
Yes, she knew all about robbers. Was not half her village lying in ruins from their raids? If a robber could have a place in heaven, perhaps she could. She fixed her searching black eyes on the speaker, "Sister," she said, "You are not telling me a lie? Is it really true?"
Perhaps you, young reader, have heard of the Lord Jesus and heaven many, many times, and you hope to go to heaven when you die. However, in order to be welcomed into that glorious home, you must come to the Lord Jesus as a needy sinner and accept Him as your own Saviour.
Messages of God’s Love 11/13/1949