Short Stories

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THE OLD PATHS
Jer 6:16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.


The quest did not take long to accomplish although the journey would have been much greater in difficulty if it had not been for our excellent guidance. Malcolm’s dark face now showed the hard lines of the many years of struggle. Yet this trip would bring about refreshment that he had not experienced many years. The once dusty trail now overgrown with underbrush stretched out before us. Remembering the songs they sang as they meandered along toward another day to worship Malcolm began to hum and a long lost smile began to grow across his face. “Look here, the praying tree, we all would write out prayers my sisters and brothers and me and we would give them to this tree.” “We thought that the Lord would come and pull them out and read them.” “I knows he could read them despite our problems with spelling.” How many of us can remember the prayers of our childhood. Oh if only we would have written down such innocence. Could it be that these are the prayers God remembers the most? I have known many people who have collected many things yet God collects prayers.
Now we would arrive at the end of our journey. The well built construction now look worn but the chapel still stood as if to say so much had gone right here for any of the world elements to tear me down. Malcolm and this church were meant for each other for they are both forgotten and oh how much has truly been forgotten. I first met Malcolm on a street corner in Nashville. Here I was a struggling country singer and I was about to get to know a man whose whole life could be made into a hit song. He looked up at me with those dark piercing eyes, and the first words he said to me “You do not make it because you have forgotten your roots.” Oh! How could anyone know me so well for what the world could never do to Malcolm it had done to me. Big dreams and big ideas had replaced the things that really mattered in my life. Yet today I was about to rediscover things that would bring my life back to life. The grave from which I had buried myself would now open up and the one to emerge from it is one that had not been seen in a long time.
The door was open and should it not always be. The door to a new life should always be open so Malcolm and I stepped in. I looked at Malcolm and suddenly saw something that I had never seen in anyone ever before. Malcolm belonged here and somehow I was thinking I was seeing the end of something but a beginning of something greater. “Right here I would sit, right here, and mom and dad they would sit on either side with my seven brothers and sisters equally divided on both ways. Mary Sue with her pink ribbons would never be still but that don’ts matter for by the second song nobody’s still.” Laughter filled the eyes and the voice of Malcolm. He seemed to be hearing something that I could not here and seeing something I could not see. Here we sat on pews built more than 150 years before by slaves yet the man of almost a century now rose with feet as light as a yearling buck began to dance to a message that only he could hear. “Don’t you understand,” he asked? “The message of this place and of my heart never dies.” The world wants a new message and the churches carry the glory of God on new carts yet this is the message of the old paths. It suddenly occurred to me I had heard this message before and yet it had escaped me.
Malcolm sat down and seemed to be looking off in a distance. No word was spoken between us for what seemed like a very long time. I noticed tears beginning to fill those warm dark eyes and I questioned whether or not I would venture into the reason for Malcolm’s sudden change of mood. Malcolm stood up and walked up to the front and stood and then he turned and with tears streaming down the wrinkled lines he says, ”Here is where she laid in the best box Papa could build for her.” He explained that Papa never could be the best carpenter but Papa really tried hard to please. “Momma worked hard and momma got papa off the booze and momma made sure our clothes were clean.” “Momma sacrificed and made sure of our comfort no matter how bad her body hurt.” “Yes momma died without any of the worldly comforts for she never even had a wedding ring.” “However she died with comfort of knowing that all of her children came to know God’s love and it was her love and Papa’s love that directed each of us that way.”
“My little brother Aaron stole one time, you know.”
“I was the one who caught him.”
“He stole from momma for she had been saving money for a long time in that old mason jar”
“I saw him reach right in there and grab out a whole handful of coins.”
“I walked right up to him and asked him what are you doing?”
“He told me that he was going to walk to James store and buy him some candy.”
“We never did get store bought candy and I guess that forbidden fruit tempted Aaron that day when he went with momma to get supplies.”
“I told him may that candy be bitter in his tummy for now on.”
He asked me why.
I told him that sin always remains bitter and it never goes away until you are forgiven.
He told me that he did not want a bitter tummy for the rest of his life and he asked what he should do.
I told him to take the money back to momma and confess his crime and seek forgiveness. Once you are forgiven the bitterness will never return.
Aaron is now a preacher. He has been preaching for many years. He preaches and many people have come to know Jesus. He always preaches about the eternal bitterness of sin and how confession takes away that bitterness and leaves the sweetness of forgiveness.
Now what happened next I can only say if I had not been there I would never believe it. Yet now I find it all so easy to believe. It started with me thinking I heard a trumpet. I looked all around to see if I could discover from where it came. I could find nothing but suddenly the sunlight came blazing brighter than I ever had known. It came blazing through the front entrance and it shown right on Malcolm who now knelt praying at the front of the church. The sight was very blinding but somehow I thought I saw a chariot full of fire come floating down to Malcolm. Then just as suddenly a cloud covers the sun and there laying before me appeared the lifeless body of a once strong and faithful man. There was such peace on his face that I immediately know that his soul had been called home. For this day Malcolm had walked the old pathway and he had found his way home.
The invitation comes from God to walk the old path. For there you will find rest for your soul. So many say we will not walk that way we will only walk in the new ways but the end there will never be any peace.

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