A young mother and her two kids were visiting a remote part of the country on freezing winter night.

Not familiar with that part of the country, the young mother asked the train conductor to alert her once they reached her stop.

It was a long train ride with the temperatures dropping to near freezing. Anxious, she began to think the conductor had forgotten about her stop and she asked a fellow passenger familiar with the route to alert her once she reached her stop.

After riding for another two hours, the passenger informed the young mother that she had reached her stop.

Thankful to the passenger, the young mother, and her two kids alighted from the train soon expecting to meet their host.

The train railed on for two more hours and the conductor made his way to where the young mother and her kids had sat.

When he could not find them, he woke the passengers and asked about the woman and her two kids.

“She alighted at the stage two hours ago.”

When the conductor heard this, his heart sank.

As the night wore on, it got colder and colder and by the time the train made the two hour trip back to the deserted station, the woman and her two kids had frozen to death.

Do you give much thought about what you blog?

Do you give much thought to the advice you give on social media platforms?

Are you best placed to give advice on relationships?

Are you taking on a role of a teacher or instructor or even a mentor that you are not qualified for?

What if our words makes our audience alight at the wrong stop?

Food for thought.

When he left home, he was convinced any other place was better.

That night, he had a bad argument with his father.

He had already made up his mind to leave.

He was old enough; he wanted to experience life on his own.

Life in the city did not turn out as he expected, and soon he was doing all he could just to get by.

When he exhausted the legal means to earn a living, he turned to illegal means and this landed him prison.

He had been involved in a robbery where someone got killed and he could not believe it when the judge handed him a 20 year sentence.

Things had unraveled very quickly, from a farm boy to a business man to a prisoner!

While in prison, he thought of home and his father, would he take him back if he ever returned?

Nearing the end of his prison sentence, he wrote a letter to the father and asked for his forgiveness.

Part of the letter read, “I will be passing home on the evening train. If you have forgiven me, tie a white ribbon on the tree near the fence. If I see it, I will alight and come back home. If I don’t see a white ribbon, I will ride on and never come back.”

On the train home, he was anxious and could not even look outside the window. Approaching his home, he asked one of the passengers to tell him if there was a white ribbon on a tree near the fence.

“No, I don’t see a white ribbon” said the passenger, “I see white ribbons everywhere. There are white ribbons on the fence; there are white ribbons on the tree, what does it mean?”

“My father has forgiven me!”

He rushed out of the train into the arms of a waiting father.

In your embrace,

My sins are erased,

My sins are just a drop

In the ocean of your Grace.