Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: JESUS (09/07/23)
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TITLE: The Strongest Word Man Ever Heard | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mariane Holbrook
09/13/23 -
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I was twelve and taking my first trip alone on this railroad that had employed my dad for over twenty years. One of the perks was the packet of twelve free passes given to each employee every Christmas. With a wife and seven children at home, the passes were a godsend to my saintly father and his two oldest daughters in college two hundred miles away.
I was excited over the prospect of spending a three-day weekend with my sisters, who were studying to be Christian missionaries in the Philippines and West Africa. As the day of my departure drew nearer, I grew more and more apprehensive about traveling alone to New York City.
Watching the northern Pennsylvania scenery race by through my wide window did little to slow my rapid heartbeat so I began focusing on my fellow passengers, wondering if they were "leading lives of quiet desperation," as Thoreau defined it. Our seventh-grade English teacher loved Thoreau and quoted him often, to the yawns of my classmates and me.
My eyes focused on a middle-aged man about five rows from me on the train. He was disheveled, with the hat on his uncombed hair resting at an odd angle. When no one was watching, he pulled a small bottle from his tattered coat and took a short drink. During one of these sips, his eyes met mine.
I quickly slid down in my seat but sensed that something had happened. I wasn't sure what, but soon the man stood in the aisle, approaching me. Holding the backs of the seats for stability, he finally dropped into the space beside me.
The smell of stale whiskey was overpowering. I stood up and tried to get past the man and find the conductor, but he forced me back into my seat. Oddly, no other passenger was alarmed by my predicament and kept reading their magazines or staring out the window.
I couldn't find my voice so that I could scream bloody murder. The drunken man pawed me, and his unshaven face scratched my cheeks. I had never been more terrified or felt more alone.
I immediately whispered, "Jesus. Jesus. Jesus, help me. Please help me, Jesus." Daddy and Mother had often talked about the power in the name of Jesus. I repeated it over and over, still too frightened to find my voice, while the man pulled on my jacket, trying to unbutton it.
I tried again and again to scream until, at last, the word "JESUS" was loud enough to fill the entire passenger car, alerting the other passengers. Instantly, three men came to my aid, with two of them dragging the drunken man away from me.
I was shaking so violently that I felt faint. One of the passengers handed me a small, unopened can of orange juice and urged me to drink it, reassuring me that I was safe now and that the man could no longer hurt me. He was locked in a room until we reached the next station, where he would be removed from the train and arrested.
One of the men who had assisted me said, "Young lady, we would have come sooner, but we didn't hear your call for help until you screamed out clearly and very loudly the name of "JESUS." That one word signaled that something of unimaginable importance was happening, and we all jumped to our feet to help."
Soon, the train arrived at Penn Station, where my sisters awaited my arrival. On the drive to the college, I told them of my terrifying experience on the train. One of my sisters hugged me and said, "Remember the Scripture verse Daddy and Mother helped us memorize in Philippians 2:9-11?"
"Therefore God has highly exalted Him and has freely bestowed
on Him the name that is above every name, that at the mention
of the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, of those in heaven
those on earth and those under the earth and that every tongue
shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the Glory of God the
Father."
Three days later, the conductor on duty for my return trip home welcomed me warmly and remembered me as the girl who "sought the Lord's help and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. (Psalm 34:4) NIRV.
Glory to God!
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"The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe." (Proverbs 18:10) KJV
Nonfiction
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