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A sad and true Thanksgiving Day story with a happy ending.
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It was daybreak of an autumn day. In the dim light two men were threading their way through a pine forest.
Tim was short and humpbacked. Despite his deformity and his tangled dark hair and beard, he had a kindly face which peered up at Ray.
Ray, a new arrival, was younger, tall, broad shouldered and carried himself proudly erect. He had a fair, clear-cut face and steel-blue eyes.
“Ray, ye’ve got a lot to be thankful for.”
“I?”
“Yes,” and Tim cheerily refused to note the scorn in the other’s voice. “I don’t jest know what’s in the few years behind ye, nor what brought the likes of ye here, but ye’re straight and strong; ye know books and ye’ve had a chance. The boys here are different, but ye’ve had a chance, Ray.”
They had reached an opening in the forest. Tim threw aside his coat, seized an ax and began with sturdy strokes to chop down a tall pine. Ray stood lost in thought. A chance? Yes, he had had that, and he had thrown it away.
“It’s nobody’s business but my own,” he said to himself, trying to forget the counsel of his aged father. “Well, I’m free from the old superstitions, yet I sometimes ask myself if freedom is worth the price I paid for it.”
Haskins Camp was situated in northern Minnesota. Ray had arrived only three weeks before. Many of the men were alcoholics, and oaths and disregard for God were common.
Tim had been a member of the crew for many years. Despite his dullness and physical deformity, he was well-liked. To the surprise of all, he befriended tall Ray. He expressed his preference in many unobtrusive ways and won a kindly tolerance from the young man.
On Thanksgiving Day snow was falling rapidly. Ray and Tim were working with a large party of choppers. Suddenly a great tree came to the ground with a resounding crash. Above the noise rang out a cry of terror and pain.
It was poor crippled Tim. He was standing where the great branches knocked him down and pinned him to the earth. Ray was the first to reach his side. Carefully the men freed him, finding his bent body fearfully mangled.
“I guess it’s all over with me, boys,” he said, trying hard to keep his voice steady. “Ray, stay by me. Oh, be careful!”
They carried him to the camp. A man raced to the nearest village, twenty miles away, for a doctor. All feared Tim wouldn’t live until the doctor arrived, and he suffered terribly.
When he had been laid on a rude bunk near the great stove, he looked up wistfully into the faces of his companions.
“It’s death, boys. Tell me ’bout God—no one ever told me.”
A strange silence fell on the group of men, a silence broken only by the howling of the wind. Tim spoke again, “Ray, tell me. Ye must know, ’cause ye’re different from the rest.”
All eyes turned toward the young man. He bent lower over Tim asking, “What is it you want to hear?”
“All ’bout Him. I don’t know much. Can’t you tell me about Him? Pray for me.”
Ray Lee’s face went white. His father was a minister. He had himself been a theological student. The influence of a skeptical classmate had put doubt into Ray’s mind. Dominated by confidence in his own mental superiority, the youth eventually scoffed at the faith of his dead mother and denied God. He wrote defiantly to his father of his change of views and left without any way to be traced.
Dark days followed. He had to learn the emptiness of life without hope in God. He hungered for his father’s voice, but he was too proud to return home. In desperation he’d hired out to the foreman of Haskin’s lumber camp.
All this flashed through his mind in a moment. This dying man was asking him to pray. A groan broke from his lips. “Tim, I cannot. I—” and he paused, unable to say that he didn’t believe in the God to whom, in the hour of death, even Tim had turned.
“Can’t! Why, I ’sposed ye knew Him.”
Ray turned away and rushed out into the storm. He went back and forth through the trackless forest ignoring the wind and snow. Face to face he met and grappled with the problem of man’s relation to his Creator.
Ray Lee was alone with God. In that hour his boasted skepticism fell from him. The theories of science and law, upon which he had rested, gave way beneath him. There was but one sure foundation.
Shadows were beginning to gather in the room where Tim lay when the door opened to admit Ray. With a firm step he crossed to the side of the dying man.
“Tim, I’ve been with God. He’s forgiven me, a sinner. Now I‘m here to tell you of His love.”
Simply, tenderly, he told the story of God’s love in sending His beloved Son into the world to die for sinners—to become the Sin-bearer of all who will put their trust in Him as Saviour.
“God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8.
“The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.” 1 John 1:7.
Others gathered around the bed. Could they doubt the truth of the words spoken when they saw the light that came into Tim’s face? “I see,” he gasped.
Ray knelt down. One after another rough men dropped to their knees. Ray had never prayed like this. God was with him. Around him were men who in Tim’s words had “never had a chance.” He prayed with a faith born of absolute belief in God’s willingness to save.
“It’s all right,” Tim murmured. “I’m going to Him. Ray, you tell everybody that I thank Him.” A few moments more and he was with Christ.
Ray faced his fellow-workers. “Tim’s gone. Boys, I’ve gone back to the service I pledged to God many years ago. Will you forgive the spirit I’ve shown toward you and let me begin by telling you?”
“Yes, we will” was the reply of the leader among the men. “When we come where Tim is, we’ll wish we’d heard.” And Ray told the “old, old story” of Jesus and His love.
Before Ray slept that night, he wrote a long letter to his father. He would remain where he was until he received an answer to the letter. The next night he held a meeting and began to tell the story of Christ’s death and resurrection.
The third evening came. At the close of Ray’s informal but heartfelt talk, the door opened for a stranger, a tall, thin man with snow-white hair. “Father!”
“My son! I came to help you here,” and Ray Lee was clasped in his father’s arms. Soon seventy souls came to know the Lord Jesus as their own Saviour.
“I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” Romans 1:16
“If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” Romans 10:9
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” John 3:16-18