Short Stories

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C O M M O N S E N S E

Ten Reasons to Live [email protected]

Once upon a time or so the story goes, a woman longed for death and found nothing to live for. She was worn and tired of the constant struggle found in life and felt that all had turned against her.

She counted as one of her many problems a husband, so concerned with material things that he paid her little attention. It was always rush, rush, rush and work, work, work for him. Her only child was no different. A daughter of seventeen, who simply used and abused her; even to the point of making her walk home in the rain while she drove with friends in her mother’s car.

There were two nosey neighbors whose only joy was spreading gossip around the neighborhood. Something they did quite well with her. And counted among her troubles were a co-worker who was always too pretty, too busy, or too slow to do her own work, which she always sloughed off on her, and a supervisor that could answer any question or explain any problem with sexual metaphors. So, she longed for death to fall upon her.

One night during a restless sleep, she heard God call to her. “Come up, for today we will judge both the quick and the dead.”

Immediately she found herself at the gateway between heaven and hell. God began to present to her persons and asked how they should be judged.

Straightway, there came two strangers dressed in strange clothing. “How shall they be judged?” He asked.

Unable to find a cause against them, she replied, “With mercy Lord.”

Suddenly, there were shouts and screams as they fell into hell. Compassion sweep over her as she realized their fate. Another then appeared. It was her hard-driving supervisor with all his sexual metaphors. “How shall he be judged?” God asked.

Immediately she replied. “I know this man and he is a good man at heart: a. father and a husband. With mercy Lord, I ask of thee.”

To her surprise, he fell into hell with wild shouts and pleas. Her compassion now overwhelmed her for his fate would be forever.

Then came the co-worker. Immediately springing to mind were the countless enjoyable lunches they shared, the jokes and happier moments traded one with another and she feared for her.

"How shall she be judged?” The Lord asked.

"Surely with all mercy and forgiveness,” the woman pleaded. “She is a good woman and a good friend.” Tears of sorrow filled her eyes as the co-worker vanished into hell with a wall of screams behind her.

“Oh Lord! Let your heart be moved and my friends be forgiven.” She began to wail.

But another was brought before her; her two nosey neighbors. And again, they suffered the fate as all the rest. “Oh, Lord how am I to go on with all my friends now gone?” She questioned in sorrow. But again, another was brought before her.

Standing before her was her husband of twenty years. “Oh God have mercy, have mercy on him! He is a good man! A good husband and father! If not for him Lord, grant him mercy for me!” She pleaded wildly.

But he too vanished into hell. Agony gripped her as she realized his fate. Rivers of tears now streaked her face. Then in the far distance she saw a figure approaching and the weigh of all her sorrows crushed upon her. For there, standing before her was her only daughter.

“Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! This is my only child! Do not send her away! Have mercy on her!” She howled covering face with her out stretched arms at His feet. But the shouts and the screams of pains and suffering was her answer. There she wept sore for a long time.

Finally, the Lord spoke to her asking. “Why do you weep so? Did you not have an opportunity to save them while they yet lived? Did you not consider their fate over your inconvenience?”

At once, she awoke and realized that she had many reasons to live.


COMMOM SENSE SAYS: Our trials and troubles with others will come and go, yet the price of losing just one is to great to imagine.

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