The Crocheted Tablecloth

The crocheted tablecloth --
a beautiful story..... makes you
understand that things happen
for a reason ...

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned to their first ministry,
to reopen a church in suburban Brooklyn, arrived in early October
excited about their opportunities.

When they saw their church, it was very run down and needed much work. They set a goal to have everything done in time to have their first service on Christmas Eve.

They worked hard, repairing pews,plastering walls, painting, etc, and on December 18 were ahead of schedule and just about finished.

On December 19 a terrible tempest -a driving rainstorm hit the area and
lasted for two days.

On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church. His heart sank when he saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster about 20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit, beginning about head high.

The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home..

On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market type sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored,crocheted tablecloth with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall. He bought it and headed back to the church.

By this time it had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus... She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later.

She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers,etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and it covered up the entire problem area.

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was like a
sheet... 'Pastor,' she asked, 'where did you get that tablecloth?'

The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there.. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria.

The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten
the Tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband
were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced
to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week... He was '
captured, sent to prison and never saw her husband or her home again.

The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she made the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor insisted on driving her home,that was the least he could do.... She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the spirit were great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return.


One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike.

He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her
safety and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a
prison... He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between.

The pastor asked him if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They
drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the
woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs
to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest
Christmas reunion he could ever imagine..

True Story - submitted by Pastor
Rob Reid..
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Dear Reader,

Who says God does not work in
mysterious ways....

I asked the Lord to bless you as I
prayed for you today, to guide you
and protect you as you go along your
way.

His love is always with you, His
promises are true, and when we give
Him all our cares you know He will
see us through.

So when the road you're traveling on
seems difficult at best....

Just remember I'm here praying and
God will do the rest.

Pass this on to those you want God
to bless and don't forget to send it
back to the one who asked God to
bless you first.

When there is nothing left but God,
that is when you find out that God is
all you need. Take 60 seconds and
give this a shot! All you do is simply
say the following small prayer for
the person who sent you this:

Father, God, bless all my friends and family in what ever it is that You know they may be needing this day! May their life be full of your love, peace, prosperity.

The Glue That Holds Us Together

If you haven't already seen this, you will love it! This is a pretty neat story and an interesting thing that few of us know. It's brief, so please read. (From a Doctor)

A couple of days ago I was running (I use that term very loosely) on my treadmill, watching a DVD sermon by Louie Giglio... and I was BLOWN AWAY! I want to share what I learned.... but I fear not being able to convey it as well as I want. I will share anyway.

He (Louie) was talking about how inconceivably BIG our God is... How He spoke the universe into being... How He breathes stars out of His mouth that are huge raging balls of fire.. . Etc. Etc. Then He went on to speak of how this star-breathing, universe creating God ALSO knitted our human bodies together with amazing detail and wonder. At this point I am LOVING it (fascinating from a medical standpoint, you know.) .... And I was remembering how I was constantly amazed during medical school as I learned more and more about God's handiwork. I remember so many times thinking.... 'How can ANYONE deny that a Creator did all of this???'

Louie went on to talk about how we can trust that the God who created all this, also has the power to hold it all together when things seem to be falling apart...how our loving Creator is also our sustainer.

And then I lost my breath. And it wasn't because I was running my treadmill, either!!! It was because he started talking about laminin. I knew about laminin. Here is how Wikipedia describes them: 'Laminins are a family of proteins that are an integral part of the structural scaffolding of basement membranes in almost every animal tissue.' You see.... Laminins are what hold us together.... LITERALLY. They are cell adhesion molecules. They are what holds one cell of our bodies to the next cell. Without them, we would literally fall apart.

And I knew all this already. But what I didn't know is what they LOOKED LIKE.

But now I do. And I have thought about it a thousand times since (already).... Here is what the structure of laminin looks like... AND THIS IS NOT a 'Christian portrayal' of it.... If you look up laminin in any scientific/medical piece of literature, this is what you will see (as shown upper left).

Now tell me that our God is not the coolest!!! Amazing! The glue that holds us together.... ALL of us.... IS IN THE SHAPE OF THE CROSS! Immediately Colossians 1:15-17 comes to mind:

'He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things HOLD TOGETHER. '

Call me crazy. I just think that is very, very, very cool. Thousands of years before the world knew anything about laminin, Paul penned those words. And now we see that from a very LITERAL standpoint, we are held together... one cell to another... by the cross!

You would never in a quadrillion years convince me that is anything other than the mark of a Creator who knew EXACTLY what laminin 'glue' would look like long before Adam breathed his first breath!!