07.02.22. A Sister Comes Home

22. A SISTER COMES HOME

One morning as Todd stood leaning on the front gate, smoking a cigarette, a sister who lived in another state and whom he had not seen for some years, came walking up the road. She had come home unexpectedly that morning and getting off the train at a small station two miles from home, had walked. When she saw him she began clapping her hands, saying, "Well, well; if it isn’t my baby brother," and when she kissed him said, "Todd, God is going to save you and make a preacher out of you." He laughed and replied, "If He is, He hasn’t mentioned it to me." But she answered, "You can laugh if you want to, but I have been praying for you and God gave me the assurance that he would save you and make a preacher of you." And nothing that he could say seemed to shake her faith.

Todd was very hard those days and would not stay in the house when the family had prayers, and sometimes when they started to pray he would pick up a French harp and going out in the yard would play a jazz or ragtime tune to show his indifference to the things of God. This would cause his mother to weep and say, "I just almost lose hope some times," but his sister would say, "Mother, don’t you worry, Todd is going to be saved; I know he is." And from this hope she seemed never to waver.