Prodigal: I am tending the garden this morning!

Me: Here is a story to make the work go swiftly.

This is from Etril Leinbach

Pastoring a rural church in 1950’s and 60’s meant earning most of your living doing something else. For fifteen years, I drove a school bus, and so did my wife, Wilma. We lived near Three Rivers in southwestern Michigan, named for the rivers that meet in the center of town-the Rocky, the Portage and the St. Joseph.

My church for twenty years was the Moore Park Mennonite Church, about five miles from Three Rivers. Looking back at those years, I see that our life was filled with children–our own three boys and the children of Moore Park and Three Rivers.

Early every weekday morning we picked them up and drove them to the community school, and in the afternoon we loaded them up again and took them home. We knew everyone. If teachers wondered where a child lived, they asked Wilma and me.

I have so many memories of those kids, but there’s one I remember especially. His name was Billy Misel. I first saw him in 1962, when he boarded my bus on the day he started Kindergarten. He was a quiet child, and tall for his age even then. I saw him most school days into sixth grade, and each summer when he enrolled in the Bible school at my church.

One day in 1968, Billy’s sixth-grade teacher gave the class a writing assignment. Billy decided to write about his dream from the night before: An angel had come to him and had taken him to heaven. Billy saw mansions and streets of gold, angels and the throne of God. Heaven seemed to be a wonderful place. The angel told Billy he could live there, but he would have to go back to earth for seven days. After that time, the angel would come for him, and he could live in heaven with God and His angels forever.

Billy had always been a serious boy, and the dream affected him deeply. The image of heaven was beautiful, and he liked thinking about it. He described his dream on paper and then read the story to his classmates. Seven days later he was riding with his brother in a pickup truck. There was an accident, and Billy was killed.

A call came from Misel family after Billy’s death, and I went to their home to make preparations for the funeral. I expected to pray with them and to express my own grief. How can anyone be prepared when the life of someone so young is ended so abruptly? But I did not yet know of Billy’s school assignment. His mother asked me to sit down, and she gave me the paper to read–Billy’s story of his dream, the story of his angel, written in his own hand.

At Billy’s funeral, I read his story out loud to a large assemblage of friends, who were profoundly moved by his words. I have described the experience countless times in the years since. It is possible, of course, that the magnificent place he saw was the product of a young’s boy imagination, enriched by the Bible stories he heard every summer at my church. It is possible that the angel was just a dream. But I believe Billy was visited by a messenger from heaven so he would not be afraid of what lay ahead, and he shared his vision with us here on earth.

Seven days tell me so.

Psalms 51:10

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org