The Day J.C. Came To Visit

A long time ago, when I was just a boy a visitor came to our house. He was so different from all the other guests who dropped by.
He was strange and yet a most wonderful man. It was a grand experience, and destined to change our lives forever. He wasn’t a relative or even a close friend yet daddy felt that he would live with us for a while.
From the day he arrived, little things began to change. Our house was the usual wreck because we seldom cleaned it. Clothes, junk and litter was strewn about. We always lived sloppy. But after J.C. came we all got down to work and cleaned that old house as it never had been cleaned before. Floors were scrubbed, and furniture was polished and trash, dirty books, cigarette butts and beer cans were dispatched without a word. As we worked we found ourselves singing and a happiness came into our lives, one we had never felt before. It became family business to live clean.
Room by room was transformed into a delightful part of the house. Something was dead in the pantry, at least it smelled that way, but J.C. cleaned it out while daddy was away. Our house was becoming a home and it was exciting to watch and more wonderful just to be a part of it.
Hearing mamma sing for the first time in my life was a special pleasure. She had a lovely voice and as happiness overflowed, the songs increased. J.C. had brought with him a great joy, a silent peace, a glad ‘hosanna’ to the whole family. J.C. was working a miracle.
Fighting ended and arguments seems to melt away. Petty grips seemed so foreign to the new way we were living. Each evening we sat about the fire and listened to J.C. talk. He spoke about life and how it was to be lived; that each moment was a precious jewel and each day a brand new 24 hours to live and learn.
One day, when daddy didn’t know we were listening, he gave J.C. the keys to the house. ”Why don’t you take the keys and run my home,” daddy said. From that moment on, we felt so secure and blessed that nothing bad could ever happen to us. One day we all took J.C. to visit our neighbor. They were living like we used to live and they really needed to meet J.C.
Later that very week, we all said goodbye to J.C. He said he had other business to tend and other people to meet. He said a strange thing that was hard for me to understand. His parting words were, “I will be with you always, even to the end of your life on earth.”
When he left I thought about what he said. Daddy paid so much more attention to mamma and us kids – he never did that before. We prayed together which was something new. I began to see that J.C.’S love was in every room. His thoughts had become my thoughts and he seemed to be walking with me wherever I went. As the years past, life with J.C. unfolded like a beautiful flower.
One night he had talked about Heaven, just as if he had once been there. “Let not your hearts be heavy or burdened. You have trusted God – now trust in me. There are many homes up where my father lives, and soon I am going away to prepare one especially for you. You know now that I am the way, the truth and the life.”
As I grew older the words and meanings became more clear to me. I sure look forward to seeing J.C. again. He had changed our lives forever. If he ever comes to your house, you’ll know. When he spoke about heaven, I didn’t know much about it for I didn’t know any of our family who had gone there. Now I am old and many loved ones have made the journey. Momma and Daddy, two sisters and a brother, along with our youngest son and oldest daughter have “crossed over “Jordan”.
I want to go to that place called heaven a lot, because so many of our loved one and friends are waiting for me there.
The Apostle Paul wrote, For we know that is our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
“With the same letter,
Heaven and home begin;
They dwell together in the mind.
For they who would a home in heaven win,
Must first a heaven in home begin to find. ”
(Author Unknown)

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