~Faith~
A young man who had been raised as an atheist was training to be an Olympic diver. The only religious influence in his life came frome his out spoken Christian friend. The young diver never really paid much attention to his friend's sermons, but he heard them often. One night the diver went to the indoor pool at the college he attended. The lights were all off, but as the pool had big skylights and the moon was bright, there was plenty of light to practice by. The young man climbed up the highest diving board and as he turned his back to the pool on the edge of the board and extended his arms out, he saw his shadow on the wall. The shadow of his body was in the shape of a cross. Instead of diving, he knelt down and finally asked God to come in to his life. As the young man knelt, a maintenance man walked in and turned on the lights.


The pool had been drained for repairs.

~The Two Roads~
“The journey on this winding road is difficult to bear. This journey will seem easier if you handle it with care. Follow him who controls it, each and every bend. For you will see the Glory of the greater, happier end.”
Where I live, there are just two roads, divided by a span of woods and dirt. I was born on the left road. It was higher up and quite narrower. The other road was wide and very busy. People crowded the often-traveled street in a hurry. There was also a great hill in the woods. It seemed very slippery. As I grew, my father fell down into the busy street. He seemed to be okay and didn’t show any hurt, so I figured he’d be fine.
I stayed on the other road with my Mom. Soon, I began to talk with some of the children my age on the other side. I began to know them better and they seemed to be fun. It didn’t take too long before I traveled through the woods to the other side. I got caught up in the bustle of the busy street. I hung out with my Dad more, and became great friends with several of the children. My Mom was still up there with my little baby sister. I began to enjoy my new friends and we spent most of our time together.
As I grew older, I began to notice things about the people on either side of the woods. I noticed that many of the people on the big road were mean-spirited and angry, so I stayed away from those ones. I looked over at the smaller road. The people on this road seemed different somehow from the others; I didn’t know what to think of that. I started talking to some of the folks on the smaller road now, the ones with my Mom. They were different, no doubt about it. They started to tell me things about the one called God, someone important that died a long time ago, the people I was with on the busy road, and where these roads ended up.
I thought about these things for a long time. These people seemed to have their story together, and it did make a lot of sense. However, I just couldn’t get over the fact that I would have to leave my friends and climb back up that big hill. It seemed a lot taller now that I was on this side. I took a look around. There were people all over the place! Left and right there were crowded, busy people. It would take forever to fight my way through this crowd. So I decided that I would just stay here for now. Then something happened that amazed and bewildered me. I saw my Dad start to push through the crowd with a stern face. He made it through the crowd and climbed up the rocky cliff between the roads. There were many people helping him, pulling him up farther and farther. By now my sister was making her way down with her friends. She seemed to stay in the middle though, with friends from up there, and friends from down here. Then my Dad had a talk with us. He told us what he had done, and what that meant to our family. I was going to be spending a lot more time with to the people up on the little road. So we did, my sister and I, though my sister had been talking a lot more than I with those people.
I started, however, to talk in depth about all the things I had heard from them before. They told me that I wouldn’t know when, but some time, the road would stop, and everything around me would be gone. At that time I would reach a door. There were two doors, one for the small road, and one for all the people on the big road. They told me that I wouldn’t know when this would happen, because God, the one they told me about earlier, decided the right time for each of us. Every person walking along these roads would see the doors at a different time. When they got old enough, they disappeared into a hidden door that no one else could see. This frightened me. I remembered many disappearing before, was this really what they saw? For some reason though, all of this seemed to be true. Still, it would be so hard, and it seemed like so much fun down here. Eventually, I had to break. I had become friends with people on the other side too. Everyone seemed to be urging me to do this, to cross over to the other road. Finally I did it. With much coaching and encouraging from all the people I saw up on the smaller road. I pushed my way through the crowds; I fought my way through the trees, up the hill, over the rocks and safe into the arms of my mother and father. This road was difficult to keep on however. I was always tripping, though now the I think about it, the other road wasn’t a very happy place anyway. Again and again, I would fall and even wander close to the edge. There were two storms that came in that first year and a half of being on that road. There had been drizzles, every one gets wet here and there, but these were much larger. I was drenched with the rain, pounded by the wind and knocked toward the edge. I even fell into the trees. I knew that I had to pull my way up, but it was so hard. If only I could just let myself fall into that other road. There were so many people down there, they seemed happy enough. It would be so much easier than this, but I knew that I was kidding myself. In any case, I did linger in those woods many times. Still, ever since then I have tripped and fallen and went head over heels into ditches in the side of the road; My friends always tell me, though, that that’s okay, I just need to get back up. So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll fight, I’ll run, and I will win the golden door that will come at the end of this journey. So stay with the road that seems the smallest. For although the road is skimpy and your legs are tired to the bone, without hard travels there is no victory. The glory that will come at the end far exceeds what little pain we suffer here. It is better to suffer on this road, then be subject to whatever horrors will come from the door on the other side.