It's an old story.

There's this recurring story in my head... one that I heard years and years and years ago back when I still went to Fanling Baptist Church, and for some reason this story got through to me. The FBC days were probably some of the worst days in my life, but that's a long story for another time.

So anyway. The speaker was a graduate of the Bible Ministry College, and she'd been at the church for some time and she was about the only person in a leadership position I actually felt I could trust. Anyhoo. So she was talking about how she had this dream - I'm not sure it was a dream but for some reason I seem to think it is so I shall keep it that way for now. She dreamt that Jesus showed her what Heaven looked like and what Hell looked like. And He took her to Hell first.

And in Hell, there were all these gaunt, pale, drawn, stiff, sick-looking figures. People who were dressed in black, in tattered clothes, in a dirty dungy place. They were sad and lonely and most of all, they looked hungry. They ignored the visitors because they were staring at something non-stop. And when she who had the dream turned around to look at what they were all staring at a table laden with food. She looked at Jesus, who shook His head sadly at her, and gestured towards one of the figures who was headed towards the table. The figure picked up a chicken leg, but he couldn't bring it to his mouth because his arms could not bend. And he tried a couple of times, but his arms just wouldn't bend and finally he sat down in frustration, starving and unable to eat.

Jesus asked her whether she had seen enough, and she nodded, and with that, He took her to get a glimpse of Heaven. As soon as she arrived, she was shocked to see that the figures in Heaven had unbendable arms too. But they all looked happy and healthy and definitely not starved. And as she walked along, she saw that these figures were getting food from the table to feed each other...

And I remember this story because I think it was one of the few sermons I understood after five horrendous years at that church. I don't remember the moral of it, I don't remember why she said it. But I remember thinking it's a beautiful story, and it's been running around in my head the past few weeks, so here it is on my blog.

I guess the reason I'm putting it down is that it is an echo of what I have been told time and time again - that it is so hard to survive alone sometimes... and that is why we go to church, so that we can be part of a community, part of a fellowship. I suppose it's true, especially in the light of this story. I shall have to learn to have more faith in people *sigh*

God bless.