Arranged by
There is a story of a widowed mother in the Highlands of Scotland, whose daughter, her only child, left her home and went away into a sinful life. The mother could only pray for her wandering one, but she never ceased to plead with God for her. At last, one dark night, at midnight, the lost child came home. Creeping up to the cottage door she found it unfastened. Entering, she was welcomed by her mother with great joy. When the greeting was over, the girl said, “Mother, why was the door unfastened tonight at midnight?” The mother replied, “Never, my child, since you went away, has the cottage door been locked by day or night. I prayed God to bring you home, and I left the door always unfastened, that whenever you might come you might know you were welcome, and might enter at once.”
So it is with Christ, the “door” of God’s love. This is a door that is easily opened; it is never locked. Christ loves to admit lost ones to his Father’s blessedness. No one who creeps up, however timidly, out of whatsoever sin, will be thrust away. When the dove, after all her restless flight, returned to the ark, it is a gentle touch in the story which says that Noah reached out his hand and drew the weary bird inside. That is the way Christ does when a soul, weary and faint, flies to the window of his love. With a hand infinitely gentle, he draws it in.