" Look," Lado said on one of their many starwatching nights. " The north star."
" Which one," asked Father.
" It's the brightest star in the sky," replied Lado, pointing. " They say, that if you see it, then that means someone is thinking about you."
" Who's thinking about you?"
Lado turned his smiling face up to Father and said, " You are."
Father smiled and hugged his son, then they both headed inside their apartment to prepare for bed. But Lado didn't like going to sleep early, and Father ended up having to play silly games with his son in order to get him to sleep. Father would catch his son up in his arms and wrestle him back to bed, both of them laughing and making a time of it.
" Can I go to work with you tomorrow," Lado asked one night."
" Lado, the sun sets early this time of year," Father replied shaking his head gently. Father worked a train bridge that crossed over the water.
" Then we'll bring flash lights," Lado suggested.
" It gets very cold at night," Father stated, still shaking his head gently. They lived in a northern temperate region.
" Then we shall bring hot chocolate," Lado insiste. Father only smiled and kissed Lado's forhead as he put him to sleep.
The next day Father me his son at school. Lado was overjoyed to see his father and leapt into his arms as soon at the bell had rung to dismiss the students and he had bolted out the door. " Have you been a good boy today," Father asked, smiling. " You know you can't come to the bridge if you haven't. Look! I brought hot chocolate." Father and son laughed as they walked down the street of their city.
There was a small pond by the railroad house where Father worked the bridge allowing for boats to cross under and trains to pass over. While Father worked the gears and gadgets in the house, Lado stood out by the pond and fished with a cane pole. " The train comes in an hour," said Father to his son. " Stay here until I come get you." Of course, Lado smiled and did as he was told, obediantly remaining by the pond and fishing to his heart's delight. He stood swinging his pole as the boats passed by, Father lifting and lowering the bridge as they came and went.
Once again, Father lifted the sides of the bridge to allow a small cargo boat a passage down the river. As it went Lado could see the billowing smoke stack of a train rolling leisurely down the track towards the bridge. But it had not been an hour yet. The train was early and Lado's father didn't know it. The train came nearer and nearer the bridge but the bridge did not lower.
" The train! The train is coming soon Father," Lado called, running from his fishing spot to the side of the House. But Father could not be seen from the window and he could not hear his son's call. " The train," Lado hollered again. " The train is coming soon Father!" He looked back to the bridge that was still lifted, the train trekking along without a care in the world.
' I must do something,' Lado thought and took off towards the bridge.
Father had been checking the mechanics of the hosue to make sure everything was working right when he went to the window that over-looked the pond. He did not see Lado and wondered where his son had gone. He peered out towards the bridge and noticed the sooty pillar of smoke. ' Oh, the train!' He thought suddenly. ' But where is Lado?' Father gazed out towards the bridge once more just in time to see Lado's feet, where he was hanging down above the gears of the bridge inside the emergency breaker, slip out of sight.
" LADO," Father cried. His first reaction was to dart outside and to the bridge, but the train was coming and if he did not lower the bridge, all those people would die. But if the lowered the bridge, Lado, who was certainly trapped in the gears and pullies would be crushed and would die! Father bolted from door to lever, beginning to weep in a frenzy of frustration. Lado was trapped! The train grew closer, now blowing it's shrill whistle as a warning as it chugged along.
" LADO," Father wept as his hands went from lever to window...lever to window. His son or those people...his sone or those people. " LADO!"
At last...Father had no choice but to pull the lever and lower the bridge. It fell just in time to allow the train to cross and he bolted out the door as he watched the train wheel by, oblivious to the sacrifice he had just made, cold...black...and uncarring. It's passengers spoke and sang casually, paying the man outside no attention. Father screamed at the train over it's bellowing whistle. He cursed it and shook his fists at it, his face twisting in unmatchable rage and anguish. But it came...and it went...without a care and Father went, weeping down to the bottom of the bridge where he found Lado, his small body crushed by the gears. He took the dead body in his arms, still weeping bitterly at his loss, the soul being he had valued the most lost to a multitude who did not care. He plodded back up to the top and followed the tracks back home, the sun setting, the icy cold gripping his tattered heart.
~
Now...there was a certain woman on that train, a woman from Father's town who had gotten mixed up in all the wrong things and was now leaving her family because she knew she disgraced them too heavily. Her sister had begged that she stay...that she come back...that she would not leave, but the woman left, giving her beloved sister one last kiss before departing. But there she was afterward, sitting in the passenger train bathroom, smoking the last of her cigarettes. She gazed out the window solemnly as she brandished a silver spoon and a lighter, placing a substance in the bowl of the spoon. As the substance burned and boiled she peered out the window again and caught sight of a man on the bridge they had just crossed over. Seeing his face...it was almost as if time slowed down.
The man seemed to be...in pain, but he did not appear physically hurt. His face was distorted with an unimaginable grief and he was flailing his arms and shouting. He and the woman caught each other's eye for a split second...a split second and an eternity before the train passed by and she could no longer see him. Yet...he reminded her of home...of the pain her family must be feeling because of her choices...the suffering her sister endured because she had left. This man had just lost something very precious to him. She had seen him in town before with his son and she began to wonder.
~
One can't be sure how much later it was that Father found himself walking the sidewalks of a train station, whether it was a few days, a few months, or a year. He was thinking to himself, ' Maybe I will discover something new...what can lie out there for me now?' And he kept to himself as he slowly strolled by the tracks. He came to a crossing and looked to make sure it was safe to go...and on the other side he spotted a familar face. A woman...the woman on the train who had cast him a single glance that day was standing across from him. She seemed new...regenerated...and she held a young baby boy of her own. And the woman had seen Father as well.
Hesitating first, she walked the cross over to him and stopped before him, looking up and smiling warmly. That smile said so many things, but the most prominent message the man could feel was...' Thank you.' The gazed at one another, never speaking, the woman smiling and Father with silent tears streaming down his cheeks. Then she turned and started back to her group bouncing her son happily and laughing.
Father smiled and closed his eyes, covering his face with his hands. He smiled widely and suddenly lifted his arms to the sky, laughing joyfully as if everything had been set right with the world once again. His sacrifice had not been in vain after all....Not in vain...after all.
Think about this:
God loved us so much (we like the people on the train) that he sacrificed his only son that so that if we accept this sacrifice with the depths of our hearts, we might live eternally in heaven with our Father.
John 3:16
' Who, being the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance of man, he humbled himself, and became obediatn to death - even death on a cross! Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.'
Philippians 2: 6-11
God loved us so much (we like the people on the train) that he sacrificed his only son that so that if we accept this sacrifice with the depths of our hearts, we might live eternally in heaven with our Father.
John 3:16
' Who, being the very nature of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance of man, he humbled himself, and became obediatn to death - even death on a cross! Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the Glory of God the Father.'
Philippians 2: 6-11
