Gò0dNews for Family
The Beggar’s Plate
W
by Rhonda Lane
hen my parents were first married, my father
father, overhearing the conversation and also knowing
agreed to move into his mother-in-law’s home
there was not enough to share, spoke up from his place
in order to help support her and her young son
at the table, saying, “He can have mine.” Now, this was
as well as his own new bride. The family home was in a very rural area of Northern
no small gesture for a strapping young man with a hearty appetite for his wife and mother-in-law’s scrumptious
Murray County along Highway 411, which at that time
cooking after a hard day’s work building houses or
in the early 1950s was a major thoroughfare between
working as a telephone lineman.
Knoxville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia. The traffic was
When we make the decision to come to Christ after we
not all mechanical, however, as many wayfarers and drifters
have walked the treacherous path of life’s highway, we too
frequently followed its course in search of something better,
are nothing more than beggars. We ask for the nourishment
I suppose. These travelers would sometimes stop randomly
of grace with nothing to offer in return except an empty
at homes along the way to ask for a free meal.
plate stained with the scraps of past sins and bad decisions.
One evening, the little family was just sitting down
Christ takes that plate, washes it clean with His blood, and
to supper when an unexpected knock came at the door.
hands it back to us piled high with generous helpings of
My mother answered, and indeed, it was yet another
forgiveness, mercy, and grace. When we apologize that we
beggar asking for a meal. Knowing that on this particular
have no righteousness with which to pay for this sustenance,
occasion, there was only enough food to feed her small
Christ replies, “You can have Mine.”
32 // December 2020
About The Author
family, my mother prepared to turn the beggar away. My
Rhonda Lane is a native of Dalton, Georgia, and is an orphaned, old maid, and only child trying to find her way in the world and lose herself in Jesus Christ.
