a Tablecloth
She was captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home
again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the
pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home, that
was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and
was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.
What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was
almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service,
the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that
they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the
neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor
wondered why he wasn’t leaving. The man asked him where he got the
tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had
made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could
there be two tablecloths so much alike?
He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for
her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put
in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in
between. The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little
ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor
had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the
three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door and
he saw the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.
(An allegedly true Story by Pastor Rob Reid, who says God does not work
in mysterious ways.)
- Contributed by Judy Biggs
Editor’s Note:
The www.truthorfiction.com Website (a fact or rumour checker) says “This
appears to be based on an article written by a man named Howard C. Schade for
Reader’s Digest in 1954. The original article does not mention the exact number
of years that had gone by since the separation from the tablecloth had occurred.
The eRumor says the span of time was 34 years. If the original article is true,
there could not have been a 34 year interval since the original events are said to
have taken place under Nazi rule, which would have probably been in the
1940s. The date of the article, 1954, was much less than 34 years later.”
Do we care whether it is true or not?
St Margaret's News
7
July 2017