While walking down the street one day I spotted Brother Bill,
He was huffing, puffing, straining in pain, trying to crest the hill.
“Oh Brother Bill, you must be ill, what’s that necklace that you wear?
Do you realize it’s twice your size?” In amazement I did stare.
Ole Bill said, “Bro, hey don’t you know, it’s a necklace from the Lord,
A millstone heavy as dad’s old Chevy hanging from a cord.”
“Now hold on friend,” I said to him thinking he’d gone nuts,
“Just tell me why you’d even try to blame the Lord on such.”
Bill raised his head still turning red and looked at me with pride,
And what he told me took a hold of me and shook me all inside.
Now Bill he said, “Around my head a millstone there should be,
It’s in God’s book you take a look I would not lie to thee.
Now I’ve got the notion to go down to the ocean for a lengthy swim.”
He needed a boat big enough to float this stone and him.
I told Bill, that this would kill a horse or even a whale,
“Just tell me why you want to die, before your ship sets sail.”
He said he led his child into the vilest path of sin,
Yes God has said you’re better dead than doing this to them.
“I taught him wrong instead of right, kept him in darkness stead of light.
I didn’t take him into church where God’s true word the people search.
I taught him to cheat, taught him to lie, how come I did, I don’t know why.
A better road we should have taken but now this stone it can’t be shaken.”
“Oh Brother Bill, hush now be still, the Lord, He still forgives.
For you and your child He doesn’t revile for you and him still live.
Turn from your ways your child can be saved for God He loves us still.”
God gave His Son for everyone, all children and even Bill.
Tertius
But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck
and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
Matthew 18:6
A note about “Bills Necklace”: I’ve found quite often that those who claim to love their children (or grandchildren) are their biggest stumbling blocks to having a real loving relationship with God. How sad! I sent this poem to fifty churches in the largest cities in each state, with the idea of them putting it in the local newspaper. My newspaper the Gazette-Journal published it for free. I never got one reply from any of the churches I wrote. How sad! I have a passion for children that has probably resulted from the lack of spiritual guidance I should have given my own kids when they were growing up. I pray for them every day.