Widely reported a few years ago, the story given below is so moving and heartwarming, that it is always worth reading again and one which warms the heart in the dark, cold days of Winter!
Just a few days before Christmas the new Pastor in Brooklyn, New York did his best to clear up damage in his Church caused by a severe storm. Heading home, he passed by a local charity flea market and went in. There he saw a large, beautifully crocheted tablecloth with a Cross embroidered right in the centre. It would be just the right size to cover up some damaged plasterwork in the Church.
He bought that tablecloth and headed back to the Church. It was snowing heavily as an elderly lady ran to catch the bus, but it passed by. The Pastor invited her to wait in the warm Church as the next bus would be a while. The lady sat in a pew whilst the Pastor hung the tablecloth to cover the damaged wall. He then noticed the woman walking down the centre aisle. “Pastor,” she asked, “where did you get that tablecloth?” The Pastor explained and the woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into it there. They were. They were the initials of the woman; she had made this tablecloth many years before.
She told the Pastor that she and her husband had lived in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband would follow her in a few days. But he was captured, and she never saw her husband or her home again. Naturally, the Pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth, but she made him keep it for the church. The least the Pastor could do was to drive the lady home. She lived a distance away and had only been in Brooklyn for the day.
Come Christmas Eve, the church was almost full and as people left, many said it had been a wonderful service and that they would return. One older man though remained seated in his pew. The man then asked the Pastor where he’d obtained the tablecloth. It was identical, he said, to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war. How could there be two tablecloths so alike?
The man then told the story of his arrest and how he hadn’t seen his wife since that time. The Pastor asked the man if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to the same house where the Pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He then helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman’s apartment, knocked on the door – and witnessed the greatest Christmas reunion he could ever imagine.
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Feature Image: Grace_Episcopal_Church_Brooklyn. Wikicommons (P.D.)