Tears at a Train Window

“When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” — from Luke 15

There was a young man whose friends later called him “J. N.” He came from a high-caste Hindu family, went to a mission school, and believed in Jesus. At first his family were angry. Then they were very kind to him, and he went back home. There he made friends who led him into drinking too much, and he turned away from Jesus.

But he was unhappy, so he came to John. John welcomed him like the father in Jesus’ story of the lost son, and J. N. came to live with him. But again and again he went back to drinking. More than once he even stole John’s clothes and sold them! John just smiled, and told a friend he would have to stay in the hot plains that summer, because he had no warm clothes left.

One day J. N. sat in a train going to the city of Lahore. He said rudely that he was going back to his old friends. John leaned in at the carriage window, begging him not to go. A lady who worked at the station saw tears running down John’s face. But the young man would not listen, and the train pulled away.

The very next day, the lady saw J. N. coming back. He looked pale. “I am going back to him,” he said. “I could not forget his tears.” When he found John, John was praying. John hugged him and said, “I have just been praying that God would send you back to me, and see, He has answered me!”

J. N.’s story does not have a neat ending. Years later he was still struggling. But he never forgot how much John had loved him.

Jesus keeps on loving people even when they get things wrong again and again. He loves you like that, too. And he can help you to love other people that way.

Dear Jesus, thank you that you never stop loving me, even when I get things wrong. Help me to love people who are hard to love. Amen.