The summer I was 16 I worked in my father’s Christian book store. The work was pleasant and always challenging. One hot day a distraught woman hurried into the store. “May I help you?” I asked.
“Yes. I need to buy a Bible. I need to find out how I can go to Heaven.”
I went to the Bible display counter and brought out a nicely-bound but inexpensive Bible. “Let me show you what the Bible says about that,” I said, as I opened it to Romans 6:23:
For the wages of sin is death,
But the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
What an old, familiar and precious truth that is! I showed her that the promise of Heaven was for everybody, that Jesus had died on the cross to pay for all our sins, and that if she would just accept His gift of forgiveness, she could go to Heaven and be with Him forever.
She listened hungrily, and after I’d answered all her questions from the Scriptures themselves, she bowed her head in prayer to accept God’s gift of salvation. She eagerly bought the Bible and left the store rejoicing. I was so glad she’d trusted Christ, that I impulsively hugged the store manager, Mrs. Nelson, and broke her rimless glasses! Of course I apologized, but I didn’t have any money to pay for fixing them. And I was too ashamed to ask my father to pay for them.
Years passed. One summer, when I was visiting my mother and father, that sad incident came to mind as we talk of old times. I told my mother, “I wish I’d paid to get her glasses fixed. I wish I could make it right.”
“Well, write her and tell her so,” my practical mother said.
“Oh, I can’t. I’m sure she’s in Heaven by now.”
“No, she isn’t. I got a letter from Geraldine, her daughter, last week. They live in Colorado.”
I eagerly took the address, calculated the cost, added to it for inflation and interest, doubled that amount, and wrote a check and a letter explaining.
Geraldine wrote back immediately. Her mother didn’t even remember the incident of the broken glasses, but she laughed, her daughter said, until tears ran down her face. “Your letter brought back so many wonderful memories for both of us. The best part is,” Geraldine added, “that the check was for the exact amount she needed to pay an important bill that was due, that she didn’t have the money for. So God was in all of this. He worked all things together for good.” And so He did.
And we know that God causes
everything to work together for the good
of those who love God. Romans 8:28 (nlt)
I knew that God had already forgiven me for my negligence as a teenager. But that day that niggling memory of my guilt was finally erased. God had made good come out of my unhappy memory of failure. And all of us were blessed by that truth.