3-30-2018 The Cork Road

3.30.18 Cork 13

“Daddy I don’t want to grow up, I don’t want to grow up!”

“Why?”

“Because then I’ll get older and I won’t be close to you. And I can’t talk in a little kid voice and I’ll have to be an adult and responsible and all that and I just wanted to be with you like I have been and I won’t be able to if I’m all grown up!”

“Why do you think that Nini?”

“Look at all the grownups Daddy! Look all the adults. They’re all serious and they’re all down.”

Jesus interrupted and said, “But you’re not going to be like that! I didn’t make you like that.”

“So you made those people like that?”

“No I didn’t. But they don’t sit and listen to me. They don’t sit with me like you are. Nini, you’re my girl. Anytime you want to come sit with me and sit on my lap as my babygirl, you can.

“Jesus because once you get all these little ones healed then there’s not going to be any little ones left and I won’t be able to have fun or anything.”

“Is that how you have had it happen when you’ve been in the inner healing?”

“No. They stayed.”

Jesus asked, “why do you think I would take all your little ones away?”

“Because you’re growing us up! Your growing us up.”

“You can’t grow up past the age that you are! You can be healed and you can help Janine, however you cannot grow past the age that you are.”

“But Jesus I didn’t know that and you didn’t tell me till just now! Why didn’t you tell me that before?”

“Because you didn’t need to know before.”

“What about all this fear I’ve had?”

“Every truth comes out at the time it’s supposed to.”

“At 7, there was a lot of things, wasn’t there God?”

“Yes.”

“Will you please heal me from craving sweet things for comfort food in my mind?”

“Yes.”

“Daddy I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay babygirl. I know where you’re at. I know how you are, I know how you feel. It’s okay sweetheart. Come here and sit on my lap.”

So I went over to Jesus and I sat on his lap.

“So I can be 7 for the whole time?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have to grow up?”

“No. Where would you grow up to? No sweetheart we’re just here for you to learn things that you need to learn and be healed and to be the beautiful 7-year old that you are. That I created you to be. Some things got put on you that were not nice and some things you just didn’t learn, so we’re here just so you can learn those things, right? Isn’t that what you asked for?”

“Yes Jesus. Daddy? Janine asked you about putting the story on her blog, cause she thought that you’ve told her to put everything on there. And you said not everything. How is she supposed to know what to put on there and what not to?”

“She’ll know.”

“How is she going to know?”

“Shall we get back to The Cork Road little one?”

“Does that mean you’re not going to answer?”

“Yes it does.”

“How come you’re not going to answer?”

“Because truth comes out at its’ appropriate time. And right now is not the time for that truth.”

“So you’re not telling me because I’m little, right? Not like my mom says ‘you’ll understand when you’re older’?”

Jesus laughed and said “No honey, I’m not saying it like that. Truth comes out at its’ appropriate time. You are taught – each person is taught at the correct time for whatever instance it is. And right now is not the time.”

“Jesus? Is that like doing things in your word and stuff, like when people like Janine, say scriptures over and over, and it doesn’t happen? Because um, it’s not the right time yet?”

“I have made an incredibly smart little girl. Yes honey that is exactly what it is. Things happen in their appropriate time. And other things have to happen before that happens, like prayer, praise, thanking me. All the things everybody knows to do and few do. There’s an appropriate time for everything.”

Daddy that sounds like that Salty Song! Jesus laughed and said “yes it does!”

“Babygirl, there is a lot of Truth around you. Around everyone. You just have to have the eyes to see it and a heart to hear it. The eyes and the heart work together if they are tuned in to me.”

“Daddy, is that like the ‘eyes of my heart’ that Janine says when she prays?”

“Yes babygirl, it’s just like that.”

“Daddy? I don’t understand the ‘eyes of my heart’. How can my heart have eyes?”

“It’s like your spirit sweetheart. Your spirit is like a separate personality. It has a brain and ears, it uses your mouth, the eyes of your heart are the eyes you use when you look on someone with compassion. When you see someone who needs help and you help them. Those are the eyes of your heart. It’s a part of me that is in you, but you have to awaken it. You have to obey it. You have to do those things that will open them up. It’s kind of like taking scales off of a fish.”

“What are you talking about Daddy?”

“You remember when your Daddy on earth was taking the scales off of fish with a knife, don’t you?”

“Yes Daddy I do.”

“Well you push them off and they come off like one at a time right?”

“Yes Daddy.”

“Well those are scales on eyes. They come off one at a time. The deeper you get into me, the more you learn about me, the more you sit with me and take time with me and spend time with me, then more scales come off of the eyes of your heart, so you gain a deeper understanding of me and you go more deeply into the spirit of me. Do you understand that Nini?”

“I think so. Wow Daddy I think that’s enough for now don’t you?”

Jesus is laughing, and he says “yes babygirl I do.”

Shall we go do The Cork Road Daddy? The Stranger is supposed to tell the kids about the hearts. Is he going to say the same things to the kids that he did to The Little Boy’s parents?”

“Well let’s go over there and see.”

“Wait Jesus! Can I have a blanket?”

“Yes babygirl! What color would you like it?”

“Pink and purple and green.”

This thing came down, it didn’t look like a blanket except that it was long and shaped like one. It was really lightweight and it looked like it was made of flower petals! And knitting with really tiny thread. I didn’t tell Jesus ‘blue like sky blue’, but there were little dots on it that were sky blue. It just settled down over my back, my shoulders and my front and my lap, where I was sitting on Jesus’s lap. It’s beautiful.

It kind of shimmers. It’s just really, really pretty and it’s so lightweight. It doesn’t look like it would be warm, but it’s really warm.

Jesus looked at me lovingly and said, “do you like it sweetheart?”

“Oh I do Daddy! So you did the blue because you heard it in my head huh?”

Jesus smiled and said “yes sweetheart. I’m glad you caught that.”

“And it’s on my back because Janine’s gets cold on her back huh?”

Jesus said softly, “yes babygirl.”

“Ok Daddy I’m ready!” I snuggled down into Jesus’s lap with his arm around me and he started talking.

——————–

“Okay boys”! The Stranger yelled, “wait for me!” So all the boys stopped at the foot of the stairs of the classroom, and waited for The Stranger to catch up. He came up and they all went into the classroom.

The teacher was in the classroom and she looked up when they came in noisily.

She clapped her hands to get their attention, and said “remember children today is half a day! You’ll have your lunch and then go home.”

The boys and The Little Girl looked at each other, they all nodded their heads yes.

The teacher looked over at The Stranger expectantly. She, like everyone else was waiting for him to tell them about the hearts.

He went to the front of the class, the teacher moved over to the side, and he said “good morning children!” They all said good morning back to him. He asked, “do you remember about the hearts in the boxes”? They nodded their heads yes, he said, “I want you to go over and pick out yours”. One child raised her hand and The Stranger said “yes”? And the child said how are we going to know which one is ours? The Stranger said “you’ll know.”

So we all got up and went over to the side where the boxes were on the long counter.

Everyone was facing the boxes and we wondered how we’re going to figure this out. The Little Boy tentatively stretched out his hand toward one box.

He look back over his shoulder, and asked, “how are we supposed to know”? The Stranger said “just walk along with your hand out like you’re doing now”.

So The Little Boy kept his hand outstretched and he walked along the counter. When he got to a box, it lit up!

“OH! THIS MUST BE MY BOX!”

The Stranger smiled and said, “I believe it is! You will each only be able to pick up the box that is yours when you reach your hand out toward it so it lights up. So even if you’re the last person and there’s only one box on the counter, you still have to reach your hand out to it.”

The children lined themselves up in a row, with the littlest one in front. They didn’t push each other, they just all calmly and quietly waited in line. The littlest one was a girl and she put her hand out and walked all along the counter until she found the box that lit up. Then each child did the same thing until they each had their own box.

They took them back to their desks and sat down. Everyone was so quiet and obedient. The teacher couldn’t believe her ears or her eyes.

The Stranger said, “okay children, I want you to slowly and carefully take the lid off the box”. So each child slowly and carefully took the lid off the box. They looked inside.

—-

“What was in there Jesus? There’s something else besides the heart isn’t there?” Jesus smiled and said, “yes there is.”

——

Inside the Box on the side of the box, there was a pencil and a notebook.

On the other side of the box was an envelope that was closed.

“Children?” asked The Stranger, “Do you all see the notebook and a pencil?” They all said yes. “I want you to take it out of the box.”

So they took it out of the box.

“Every time somebody does something to hurt you I want you to write it down in the notebook. Okay? can you do that?”

They all said, “yes sir.”

“There’s two sides to this notebook. There’s the front side that has the white paper with the lines and on the other side is light blue paper with lines. Do you all see it?” They all said, “yes sir.”

“On the white part, I want you to write down every time somebody hurt your feelings or hurt your body. And on the blue side I want you to write down every time somebody makes you feel good, or says something nice to you or does something nice for you. Do you understand?”

The children said yes.

One little girl in the back said “what if we don’t know how to spell?”

The Stranger said “just do the best you can honey.”

Every morning when you come into school, each child is to take one of the necklaces that you and your teacher made with one of the amazing words on it, and put it on another child. You’ll have to count off.”

He looked over at the teacher and asked, “is it alright with you if we do the count off now?”

She nodded her head yes. She said “okay class I want you to start right here on this first row and I want you to count off.” So the first child said one, the next child said too, until they got all the way around to 20.

The Stranger said, “your teacher will pass out the necklaces. She isn’t going to look at them, she will just hand one out to each child. If you remember, you wrote a lot of words down on that board. So there are a lot of these necklaces. When your teacher gives you the necklace, then you all turn and face each other, and the children that are 1 through 10 will exchange their necklaces with the children that are 11 through 20.

Then you’ll put them around your neck. So let’s try that now.”

The teacher went and got the necklaces, and passed them out, one to each child as they all stood 1-10 on one side of the room and 11 through 20 on the other side of the room. Then the child who had the number one and the child who had the number 11 walked across the room and they each gave the other child their necklace and they put it on. And each child did that till it was all done.

The Stranger said “excellent! You did that very well children! I’m very proud of you! Now go back to your boxes and sit at your desks.

Do you all see that envelope in there?” They all nodded her head yes. The Stranger said, “I want you to open it and look inside.” So they each opened it and there were lots and lots of stars in there! There were blue stars, yellow stars, gold stars, silver stars, red stars, green stars, purple stars, every color you could think of, there was a star.

The Stranger said, “every time you talk to each other on the playground I want you to use the word on their necklace, like, come here” he said to The Little Boy. On his necklace was written the word amazing. The Stranger said, ‘this is how you might want to say something to him. “Hi amazing! I’m so happy to see you!’

Or, ‘Wonderful, do you want to eat lunch with us?’ And she or he would reply to you with your word, ‘yes happy, I would like that!’

So instead of calling each other by your given name that your parents gave you, I want you to call each other by the words that are on these necklaces okay?”

They all said okay!

“Now, the stars are for you to give to each other but only when someone says something nice about someone else. And not just to get a star, you’ll be able to tell if they mean it or not.

You may give two stars to someone if they say a scripture to you.”

One of them little boys raised his hand and asked, “Stranger? What’s a scripture?”

The Stranger said, “hmm, a scripture is a sentence from the Bible. Since many of you do not know what the Bible is and do not know what it’s about, your teacher will be telling you and teaching you about it, but only if you join the kids club before school starts. That means you will have to get up extra early at home, you’ll have to maybe go to bed earlier, you’ll have to have all your homework done. But it will be worth it, I promise you. How many want to join the morning kids club?”

Everyone raised their hand. The teacher smiled. The Stranger smiled.

“Now for the last thing, the heart inside the box.

Every time you say something mean about someone else, everytime you lie, every time you are not nice to someone, a piece of that heart is going to turn dark. I want you all to look at the hearts very closely.”

All the children looked into their boxes and stared at the heart inside.

As they stared at it, they could see it was made up of tiny little pieces. You could see them, but they were very small. There seemed to be hundreds of these little pieces all over the heart.

“You all see those little pieces right?” asked The Stranger.

They all said yes.

“Each time that one of you says a mean thing, an unkind word about someone else, or to someone else, or even about yourself, one of those pieces on the heart is going to turn dark. If that heart turns completely dark, it will never be red again. It’s not easy to get that heart completely dark. It takes a lot of effort. However, the strange thing about this heart is, every time a piece gets dark, it’s going to feel like it’s your own heart that hurts.” The children’s eyes got wide.

“If there is a dark spot on the heart, can anybody tell me how they think they could turn it red again?”

Hands shot up around the room. The Stranger asked a little girl with brown hair,

“Ok honey, how do you think you could turn the heart red again?” She said, “mister, I think if we were nice to each other then the heart would go red again.”

The Stranger smiled a very big smile, and he said, “yes! You are exactly right! When you are kind to someone, including yourself, then any part that is dark will go red again.

That’s enough for today children, I think it’s lunch time?” He looked over at the teacher, the teacher looked at her watch and nodded her head yes. She said, okay children get your lunches, and don’t forget your books for your homework tomorrow and go outside for lunch.”

They all scrambled to go get their lunch boxes and their lunch bags, then they could hear the teachers voice ring out, “did you forget something children?” They all stopped dead in their tracks. You could see them looking at each other. Then one of the children ran over and put the lid on her box. The rest went over and put the lids on their boxes. “Very good children” she said, “now go.”

She looked over at The Stranger and said “thank you so much for all of that.”

The Stranger said, “my pleasure.” The teacher said, “you know there is no money in the school to start a club and the teachers aren’t allowed to start clubs on our own. It’s against the rules.”

The Stranger said “I know that. One of the parents is going to start the club. And they will have funding to keep it going. And I will provide all the Bibles for the children and for you.” The teacher exclaimed, “oh thank you sir! But I have my own.” The Stranger smiled and said, “yes I know you do. However there is a Bible that is for children to be taught from. I don’t believe you have a children’s Bible.”

The teacher smiled and said “no, I don’t. Thank you for thinking of that.” The Stranger smiled and said “my pleasure.” The Stranger asked, “before I go for today, is there anything that you would like?”

The teacher said, “would you give me a minute to think about it?”

“Of course. Let me go get my things in the back.” So The Stranger went to the back and he got the bag and all his stuff together. The teacher was thinking, and she asked the Lord in her mind, ‘Lord what is the one thing that I really want? I’ve been praying about so much lately, what is the one thing – if I could have one thing – what would it be?’

She said to The Stranger, “I would like to have a woman, who knows Jesus, come into the classroom as my assistant, in a paid position to help me with the children.”

The Stranger looked at her and smiled, “done” he said. The teacher laughed, “how could you do something that quickly?” The Stranger said “just all in a day’s work ma’am. You asked for something for the children, partially for you. Is there anything that you personally want?”

She sighed and said, “it seems my world revolves around other people, it’s hard to think only of myself.”

“I’ll tell you what,” The Stranger said. “The two things that you pray about first thing in the morning and include in your prayers at night, those two things are what you shall have.” Her eyes widened.

Only she and God knew what those two things were. She looked at him more closely, with a penetrating gaze. He just looked at her and smiled. He put his hat on, put his overcoat over his arm, put his hand on the door, looked back at her and said, “The first two things that you pray about.” And he was out the door.

That night, when she was at home, she told her husband everything that The Stranger had said. Everything that had happened in the classroom and what he had told her personally. Her husband looked over at her and smiled. He had a good idea of what the two things were. Even though he’d been fighting sickness for a while and he couldn’t get down on the floor and pray with her at night, they still pray together with him laying in bed and her kneeling beside him.

They each also had their own private time with the Lord, but he knew his beloved.

They went to bed said their prayers and went to sleep. In the morning his wife got up earlier than usual and started praying. And thanking God for whatever it was he was going to give her.

She heard a rustling and knew her husband was awake. She started to go into the bedroom to help him get into his wheelchair. Just then there was a knock at the front door. She called out to her husband, “just a minute honey, there’s a knock at the door, I’ll be right there to help!” He said, “I’m okay honey, go ahead and answer the door.”

She went to the door and The Stranger was there. He said, “excuse me, I know it’s early but I wanted to get you these things for the start of the club when your assistant is there. I believe she’s there now. She was eager to get it started. I spoke to her last night, she’s a neighbor of The Little Boy. She’s actually the mother of The Little Girl that used to have matted hair in the back.”

The teacher’s face lit up, “oh! I’ve seen her around town! I didn’t know she knew Jesus?” The Stranger said, “she didn’t before, but she does now, so you can disciple her and she can help you. She’s very open to the Lord and she has learned quite a bit in these last two weeks already.”

The Stranger handed her several bags of materials. The teacher looked in them, there were books and crayons, coloring books, everything about Jesus. There were children’s books and children’s Bibles, and there were cushions for the children to sit on. She was amazed and she started crying, “I don’t know how to thank you for this!” The Stranger said “there’s no need really, it’s my pleasure. This is what I do. I go from town to town and I help people out that want it and need it.”

The teacher remembered her husband and she said “oh! Please come inside and wait for a moment while I go help my husband?” The Stranger said “I would love to.”

She went rushing into their bedroom and stood there. Her mouth dropped open.

Her husband had gotten himself dressed. He was standing upright, holding on to a walker but he was still standing upright. He was smiling at her. He said, “I know, at least one of the things that you pray for every night. And I thank you for it.” She started crying. The Stranger could hear her sobbing, and he smiled to himself. She went over to her husband and hugged him, he raised one arm keeping one on the walker and wrapped it around her and they both cried. Happy tears.

She stopped and blew her nose and wiped her eyes and went out to the living room remembering, that The Stranger was there. Her husband walked with the walker out to the living room. The Stranger came over and shook his hand. Her husband said “I’m very pleased to meet you. Thank you so much for what you’ve done for us.”

The Stranger said “my pleasure.” Her husband knew who it was. She was beginning to. All of a sudden she got the urge that she needed to throw up. Her eyes widened, she put her hand over her mouth and with muffled words said “excuse me!” She ran into the bathroom and threw up.

Her husband heard her, he looked over at The Stranger and he said “Thank you sir.” He started to try to lower himself down on his knees and the stranger said, “do not do that. Do not worship me. Worship the One who sent me.”

There were tears running down her husband’s face and he just stood there and raised his one hand off the walker and was praising the Lord. Without thinking, he raised his other hand off the walker and was standing there with both hands raised, praising the Lord and thanking the Lord. His wife came out of the bathroom amazed that her husband was standing there without any support to hold onto, or just to hold him up. She couldn’t believe her eyes but she knew it was true. She started crying again. And then she had to run back to the bathroom and throw up again. She came out, looked at The Stranger and she said, “am I….?” The Stranger looked at her and smiled with a twinkle in his eye, he said “yes, you are pregnant.”

The woman started crying again, ran over her husband and cried and cried on his shoulder. The Stranger started laughing and her husband started laughing, while she cried on her husband’s shoulder. Then she started laughing and pretty soon the atmosphere just reverberated with laughter.

The teacher got her things together and said “oh! I have to go! I’ll be late!” The Stranger said, “here, let me help you with these packages.”

“Thank you!” And they hurried out the door, walking briskly down the street to the school house. The teacher looked around her and saw that there were pieces of cork from the road missing. She filed that away in the back of her mind. I’ll think about later, she had to get to school quickly!

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