Gobsmacked!
This story blew my socks off when I heard it today.
I was travelling with family on the way to Cape town and we stopped at a charming restaurant to meet up with an old friend of theirs for a meal.
Image Soource www.Pixabay.com
I had been prepared to meet an old man who had seen better days who was a bit of a trial in his manners and cynical outlook on life. I sighed within myself and prepared to be patient and understanding. How bad could it be?
When I was introduced to Neville, "call me Nev," I wondered who he was because I was amused by his old fashioned courtly manners and warmed to his smile! I looked at the others and saw that indeed this was the friend they expected to meet and they raised their eyebrows slightly at the unspoken question in my eyes.
Over a leisurely lunch this was Nev's story.
Years before, his son George got a position working in Saudi Arabia in a prestigious firm as an engineer. The job came with a generous pay and leave package. He lived luxuriously.
Time went by and the coin flipped as it sometimes does when things seem to be too good to be true and suddenly the company that George had worked for successfully was in trouble. The details were not explicit but it was enough to sink my heart as Nev told us that his son went "from riches to rags..........and worse!"
The company had defrauded the government in some dreadful way and SOMEONE had to pay.
In a fashion that even George could not explain satisfactorily to his father (or he was too astounded or maybe embarrassed to tell) he was suddenly wrenched from living a life of hard work and opulent relaxation to standing in the dock in a court of law, inadequately represented. The rats were fleeing the sinking ship and he was left to face the very serious accusations.
The bosses escaped and he was the scapegoat.
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Image Source wwwPixabay.com
He was sent not only to prison but condemned to DEATH for the consequences of his firm's actions.
There followed several years of claims and counter claims and Nev fell into the depths of depression as he heard of the courtroom battles big and small until one day he heard that the death penalty was off the table and life imprisonment was the final verdict. After a brief feeling of relief, the verdict brought him little comfort. Their contact was unsatisfactorily sparse and George's future was extremely bleak.
By this time my favourite spaghetti dish was a cold glue on my plate as I stared open mouthed (so rude but I was lost in the drama) at the teller of this sordid, cruel story. The guilt or innocence of George was inconsequential as I observed with a shrinking heart, the devastation, the father of a beloved son, experienced.
The deep lines on Nev's face spoke volumes about his intense suffering so many thousands of kilometres away from a prison in Saudi Arabia.
He hung his head over his food as though gathering his strength for the final chapter...............
We waited breathlessly as the gulls mewed over our heads and the sparkle of sun on waves was lost to us.
"And then he came home."
He lifted his face and tears shone in his aged filmy eyes. "Just like that," and he feebly silently flicked his thumb and middle finger together. He blinked furiously and the glimmer of a smile began to wipe away the years of intense suffering.
"His sentence was rescinded..........suddenly, a bolt from the blue............hardly explained. And my boy came back to me."
I touched his arm and his fierce hand trapped mine and I felt hope rise up in him.
"He came home and has been with me for some days and he would have been here except urgent business, a chance for another job in his particular field in Cape Town has called him away. But he rang me this morning and he is so hopeful and he will be back with me on Saturday.
We're going fishing out on the boat like old times when he was a teenager."
The glow grew in his face and by this time we all had tears glistening in our eyes. I blew my nose.
What I experienced afresh today was how, when one is hopeless, life becomes a slow draining of grey dishwater from a greasy sink...........tedious and ugly in the extreme.
When hope is rekindled, colour begins to seep back into one's life.
When victory comes through the full blast of a new dawn fills the sky.
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Image Source wwwPixabay.com
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Thank you for your recommendation. I find it most encouraging.
Wonderful story @justjoy, I am really impressed with your incredible writing skills. This story actually brought tears to my eyes from sadness, then to tears of joy. I have never experienced that before with such a short story, what an amazing happy ending. Praise the lord, thanks for sharing❣️
I have a Christian friend who does supportive work amongt people who have been convicted of drug smuggling (because they are desperate financially, no excuse of course) and are hopeless in foreign prisons. She visits from south Africa and takes food, clothes and preaches the gospel and saves many of them from hopelessness. She has brought some of them home to South Africa.
Thank you for the positive words, much appreciated. I'm keen to read your posts.
Once again, what an amazing story, and what an amazing Christian friend you have. Isn’t that incredible how God can work through people who completely give their lives over to Him. It’s a miracle to behold, when Christ can save people through His Church, like that, in the darkest places imaginable. Sometimes God allows broken people to go down to the depths of hell, because it is there that they might finally reach up to Him, and ask Him for help because it is the only thing left to do.
If there is a person so loving and good that will go where God tells them to go, like your beautiful friend, Christ can work through that person and can even speak through that person to share the Gospel to save there souls, which is the ultimate help He can give them. If you pray, and ask God to talk through you, to an unbeliever, He will, “ask and you shall receive” God says. Your Christian friend, united as one with Jesus, together they become the light in the darkness, the lamp on the stand, the refuge they have prayed for❣️
I hope you can read the words on the picture that I drew, if not it says -
Hello @justjoy, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!