A TRUE mother’s love is a costly thing. It costs her many an aching heart. It will stretch across the wide world after a wandering boy. It will follow a willful daughter even in the haunts of shame.
Such love is of God, and in it we have a faint illustration of “His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins,” and that “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
I would like to relate a sad but true story of a mother’s love. She had an only daughter named Katie, and she loved her dearly. But, alas, like so many young girls today, she wanted her liberty, freedom to have her own way and to indulge in the world’s deceitful pleasures. In vain did the poor mother remonstrate with her erring daughter, seeking to warn her of the dangers and the pit falls along “the broad way” which only “leads down to destruction.” Katie had her mind made up.
One morning at daybreak she left the home of love, determined to see the world, the world that has broken and is breaking thousands of hearts, and ruining lives eternally. As her mother rose and prepared to get breakfast, she wondered why Katie did not respond to her call. Alas, on the table was a letter written carefully and neatly folded, telling the sad story that her daughter was gone! — she had run away from home!
The heartbroken mother was overcome at first with her grief, but she carried her sorrow to Jesus. Had she not often read in His Word: “Casting all your care upon Him; for He careth for you.” 1 Pet. 5:77Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. (1 Peter 5:7). She knew what it was to be “comforted of God,” “even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort” (2 Cor. 1:44Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God. (2 Corinthians 1:4)), and He gave her sweet relief.
Days, weeks, months rolled by, and day by day the mother prayed, “O God, bring my Katie home again, for Thou knowest where she has strayed.” Every night the anxious mother placed a light in the window, saying as she did so, “She might come home tonight.”
Not a night since Katie left home had the anxious praying mother failed to place that welcoming light in the window, nor had she ever locked the door. The long and weary hours marked the mother’s faithful watch, her confiding trust and unswerving hope in God and His long care.
One wintry evening a forlorn figure made her weary way along the road and turned up the walk to the widow’s cottage. It was Katie. She saw the light burning in the window, and she paused outside the door. She heard her mother’s familiar voice saying, “She might come back tonight, I must have a cheery light.”
The latch was gently lifted and the long-expected voice was heard in timid broken tones, “I have come, Mother. Mother will you ever take me in? I’m tired, tired of the life of sin I’ve been living.”
“Katie, oh my dear Katie,” exclaimed the fond mother as she open wide the door, “God has answered my prayers. Praise, oh praise His name!” And the next few moments are too sacred to describe.
Then upon that face, once so sweetly fair, the mother fixed her tearful eyes. What a change! It was now lined with sorrow, pain, and care.
“You have suffered,” said Mother, “let my dear Katie know that those cheeks will soon be bright and rosy again, now she is at home.”
But, as the days and months passed, Katie’s cheeks did not grow rosy, instead she grew weaker and weaker until her mother saw clearly that her darling was fading away.
One day Katie said, “Mother, if I come to Jesus, will He turn me away?”
“No, no, my dear,” replied Mother, “If I love you so much, Jesus loves you a hundred times more! He is waiting to receive you, if you will only go to Him with a broken will and a repentant, believing heart. Does He not say, “And him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out?” John 6:3737All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (John 6:37).
The next day Katie’s face was radiant, and she whispered: “Mother, Jesus took me in last night. He showed me His wounds, and said, ‘I died for love to you.’ "
A few more weeks of resting, dung which Katie grew wonderfully in the knowledge of Jesus as her Saviour, and then the call came for her to leave her earthly cottage for the presence of her Lord in heaven. The Shepherd had carried home His straying sheep and she was received with great rejoicing.
Dear reader, has God’s wondrous love won your heart?
" Far away my steps had wandered,
Long in paths of sin and shame;
‘Till my wayward heart deceived me,
And the world my trust betrayed:
Then I cried, 'There’s none can help me,
None whose love can soothe my woe,’
When I heard a voice that whispered,
'Child. I loved thee long ago."
ML-12/03/1972