Down-Home-Chatter-L Archives

From: <>
Subject: [DHC] THE TRAIN
Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 12:13:42 EDT

1:53 PMSubject: Fw: The TRAIN
There was once a bridge that spanned a large river. During most of the day,
the bridge sat with its length running up and down the river, parallel with
the banks, allowing ships to pass through freely on both sides of the bridge.

But at certain times each day, a train would come along and the bridge could
be turned sideways across the river, allowing the train to cross it.

A switchman sat in a shack on one side of the river where he operated the
controls to turn the bridge and lock it into place as the train crossed.

One evening, as the switchman was waiting for the last train of the day to
come, he looked off into the distance through the dimming twilight and caught
sight of the train lights.

He stepped onto the control and waited until the train was within a
prescribed distance when he was about to turn the bridge.

He turned the bridge into the position, but, to his horror, he found the
locking control did not work. If the bridge was not securely in position, it
would cause the train to jump the track and go crashing into the river.

This would be a passenger train with MANY people aboard. He left the bridge
turned across the river and hurried across to the other side of the river,
where there was a lever switch he could hold to operate the lock manually.
He would have to hold the lever back
firmly as the train crossed.

He could hear the rumple of the train now, and he took hold of the lever and
leaned backward to apply his weight to it, locking the bridge.

He kept applying the pressure to keep the mechanism locked. Many lives
depended on this man's strength. Then, coming across the bridge from the
direction of his control shack, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

"Daddy, where are you?" his four-year-old son was crossing the bridge to
look for him. His frist impluse was to cry out to the child, "Run! Run!" But
the train was too close; the tiny legs would never make it across the bridge
in time. The man almost left his lever to snatch up his son and carry him to
safety. But he realized that he could not get back to the lever in time if
he saved his son. Either many people on the train - or his own son - must
die.

He took but a moment to make his decision. The train sped safely and swiftly
on its way, and no one aboard was even aware of the tiny broken body thrown
mercilessly into the river by the onrushing train. Nor were they aware of the
pitiful figure of the sobbing man, still clinging to the locking lever long
after the train had passed. They did not see him walking home more slowly
than he had ever walked; to tell his wife how their son had brutally died.

Now, if you comprehend the emotions that went through this man's heart, you
can begin to understand the feelings of Our Father in Heaven when He
sacrificed His Son to bridge the gap between us and eternal life. Can there
be any wonder that he caused the earth to tremble and the skies to darken
when His Son died? How does He feel when we speed along through life without
giving a thought to what was done for us through Jesus Christ?

I hope you choose to pass this on....

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