Saving The Rotten Apple
A boy was picking apples up off the ground that had fallen off the
apple tree. He was having a lot of trouble finding any on the
ground that was good enough for his mother to bake a pie with.
Another boy came along and asked what he was doing. The boy
said, I’m getting apples so my mom will bake me an apple pie to
eat. The other boy said, That’s a great idea, I will do the same.
Neither one of the boys could find enough good apples to make a
pie with. The apples still on the tree were plentiful, but too high to
reach. They decided to work together and one stand on the others
shoulders and pick enough good apples so both would have
enough to take home to have pies made for each of their family’s.
They worked together and picked lots of apples off the tree. They
were on their way home and decided to take a rest while going
through the cemetery on a small hill above the church. One of the
apples fell from the hand of one of the boys. They watched as it
rolled down the hill and broke open when it hit the fence at the
bottom of the small hill. They sat down behind one of the
tombstones in the cemetery, where it made a shade for them from
the hot sun. There was also an open grave beside of where they
were sitting.
The boy’s noticed that some rotten apples had got mixed with the
good ones that they were carring. So the boys decided to divide the
good apples from the bad apples, while they were sitting there in
the shade. The bad apples they threw in the empty grave, the good
apples would be kept to take home. One boy said, I’ll save the
good ones in a pile beside of me, the other boy close to the open
grave said, I’ll take the bad ones and throw them in the hole.
As the boys were dividing up the apples behind the tombstone out
of site, the richest and meanest man in town was walking along
side of the fence by the cemetery. He was on his way to foreclose
on a near by farm, and put the family that lived there out into the
street with a place to stay.
He could hear the voices coming from inside the cemetery, he
stopped to listen to what was being said. He heard them say:
What about this one? Another voice said, Yeah, I’m saving all the
good ones. The rich man listened to the voices he was convinced
it was Satan and Jesus collecting the souls from the cemetery.
Then he heard one of the voices say: What about that one down by
the fence, he was a good one to start with, are you going to save
that one too? The other voice said, NO, he is a bad one now, I’m
not going to bother with him, you can throw him in the pit along
with the all the other bad ones.
The rich man took off running to the farm that he was going to
foreclose on, and put the family out. When he got there, he told
the family that he was changing his ways and forgiving everyone’s
debts that owed him money. He had plenty to last him two life
times already, and he was going to start helping out in church now
too. He went on off to find the preacher, and see what he needed to
do for JESUS to save him too.
The first boy took his apples home for his mother to bake a pie
with, and said Good bye to the other boy near his home. His
mother said, Yes we have a lot to be thankful today, an apple pie is
just the thing to bake, we are not loosing the farm after all. Jesus
answered my prayer. I asked that he save our farm, and he did.
He even found a way to change the richest and wickedest man in
town too. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways.
Written By : Johnny lee Hall
