HOW would you feel if you had hit someone with a baseball bat?
I don’t know how Susan’s head got in the way, but I swung as hard as I could because the bases were loaded, and I wanted to make a home run. There was an awful thump, and everyone screamed. The Nurse came and bent over Susan, and I ran away as fast as I could. I didn’t want to be around because I was afraid Susan would die and I would be a murderer. I ran to my cabin and lay face down on my cot and cried and cried and cried. I wondered how I could ever meet Susan’s mother again.
I hadn’t been there very long when a kind Christian lady came in. She sat down beside me and just sort of patted me until I stopped crying. Everybody loved her because she was always so good to us.
“Alice,” she said to me softly, “your heart is broken because you hurt Susan and made her suffer, but did you ever think how you have hurt the Lord Jesus and made Him suer?”
I was surprised. “Why, what do you mean?” I asked, drying my tears. Miss Clarke opened her Bible. “He was wounded for our transgressions,” she read, “He was bruised for our iniquities.” “The Bible tells us that we are all sinners, Alice. We have all done wrong. But this verse tells us that He died on the cross for our transgressions and iniquities — our sins.”
I had never thought about those things before, but Miss Clarke was so gentle and sweet that while she talked I thought I had done an awful lot of bad things. I remembered lies I had told, and how I had disobeyed my mother, and the time I had cheated in school. I felt so miserable that I started to cry again.
“I know it!” I sobbed. “I know it!”
Miss Clarke stroked my hand. “Alice,” she said, “let me show you how the verse reads when I put your name in it. ‘He was wounded for Alice’s transgressions, He was bruised for Alice’s iniquities, by His stripes Alice is healed.’ "
“Oh, Miss Clarke,” I said, “does it really mean that?”
“It does if you believe He died for you, and if you will let Him come into your heart as your own Saviour.”
We knelt beside my bed and I told the Lord about the sins in my life. I told Him I believed He died for me on the cross. I asked Him to come into my heart and make it clean, and to make me His forever. I don’t know how it happened, but I was sure the Lord Jesus had heard me, and that fie was really my own Saviour from then on.
Getting up, I flung my arms around Miss Clarke. “I feel as if I were dancing inside,” I said, “and when Susan gets better I’ll be the happiest girl in the whole world.”
We prayed for Susan and soon she was better, though she had the blackest eye you ever saw. But I knew it wasn’t as black as my heart was bore I trusted Jesus.
You would be a lot happier too, if you would trust Jesus. He died for you and wants you to put your name into the verse. Won’t you do it now? Just write it in the blanks: “He was wounded for ____’s transgressions, He was bruised for _______’s iniquities... and with His stripes ________ is healed.” Isa. 53:55But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5).
B. C. Jordan
ML-02/13/1966