I Was Left Behind

It was summer of 1964. We had borrowed $1000 from the bank, took our five children and were off to the New York World’s Fair. While we were there, we decided to visit the Statue of Liberty. We purchased roundtrip tickets for the ferry boat to Ellis Island.

We were impressed by the largeness of the statue. Inside its frame, the statue had stairs that lead all the way up to the crown, but it was a steep and hot climb. My husband and most of the children ventured ahead of me, but my son and I stopped to rest. Soon here came my husband back down again with the other children as he had gone as far as he wanted to. I was determined to continue, so my son and I kept climbing those steep stairs to the top. After we had rested and viewed the landscape we started the climb down. Upon reaching the bottom of the statue we began looking for my husband and the other children.

Suddenly my son exclaimed, “There they are mother. Look they are already on the ferry boat and are leaving us behind”!

Well, by now I should have realized that my husband, who is always in a hurry, does not like to wait for anything. However, at that moment I was hopping mad!
I was not in a forgiving mood! I won’t mention all the thoughts that crossed my mind at that moment, BUT one thing for sure -- I did not enjoy being left behind.

As I think back now on that event, I am reminded about the scripture that says we should watch therefore because we know not what hour the Lord will return. Jesus told his disciples that two would be in the field; the one would be taken and the other left behind.

This triggered another memory of something that happened to me when I was fairly young. I had heard Bible stories about Jesus coming back some day in the clouds to take all those who were Christians. At that time I had not made my own decision to receive Jesus. So I told my mother about my plan to make sure I was not left behind when Jesus returned.

I said that I would stay close to her, and when she went up that I would grab her leg and go up along with her. Well my sweet mother had to hide her smiles as she patiently instructed me. She said that each person must make their own personal decision to invite Jesus into their heart. She told me that I could not depend on someone else’s friendship or relationship to get me into heaven.

Later on as I learned more about Jesus I did make that personal choice to accept him as my Savior. I did that because I loved Jesus and wanted to follow him.

And - - - certainly I did not want to be one of those who were left behind.