Encourager..Feb..Vintage Love

Vintage Love
The Tablecloth Story
(Told as a true story, By Rev. Bob Reid, suburban Brooklyn, N.Y.)
The story is told of a pastor & his wife who were sent to suburban Brooklyn to oversee
the renovation & reopening of an old neighborhood church. They arrived in Brooklyn
with great excitement & anticipation, & pulling up in front of the church, their excitement
escalated, as the old church was a picture of age old beauty. But stepping inside, their
hearts sank, as they saw all the work that lay ahead of them. They worked long hours,
repairing pews, plastering walls & painting, and were finally able to announce a date
for their first service. However, just 4 days before they were to open the church, a
driving rainstorm hit the area which lasted 2 days. When the pastor went over to the
church to see how it had weathered the storms, his heart sank as he noticed a large area
of plaster about 4 feet by 6 feet had fallen off the wall just behind the pulpit. The pastor
cleaned up the mess & not knowing what else to do, he headed home. As he was leaving,
he noticed an indoor flea market on the corner & wondered if they might have something
that would cover the spot until he could do better. As if God was directing him, he walked
straight to a table that held old linens, & immediately found a beautiful, hand crocheted,
ivory table cloth, just the size he needed. To his utter surprise, there was a big white cross,
crocheted right in the middle of it. As the pastor paid for his miraculous find & headed
out the door, he noticed an old woman just missing the bus at the corner bus stop & since
it was bitter cold, he approached her, introduced himself & offered to let her sit in his warm
church just down the block to wait for the next bus in 45 minutes. As the old woman
sat quietly in the pew, the pastor got a ladder & what he needed to hang the tablecloth. But
as he was hanging it, the old woman made her way to the pulpit & asked where he had
found it. After he explained, she asked if the initials, EBG were crocheted in the lower
right corner, & he said they were. The old woman began to explain that before the war, she
& her husband were living in Austria & she had made that tablecloth.. When the Nazi’s
came, she was forced to leave & her husband was to follow her as soon as he could.
But she was captured, sent to prison & never saw her husband again. The pastor could
not believe what he was hearing, & offered to give the tablecloth to her, but she refused
& said she wanted it used by the church. The pastor told her he was finished with his work
for the night & had been so moved by her story that he insisted on driving her home.
The next day, was the first day of service in the newly renovated church & it was packed.
After the service, the pastor noticed an old man that continued sitting in the pew after
everyone else had left. So he approached the old man & asked if he would like to talk.
The old man said he was just admiring the tablecloth behind the pulpit as it was identical
to the one his wife had made many decades ago. He recounted the same story the old
woman had the night before. The pastor, realizing that neither of them had ever remarried
and were still telling the same story of how they had lost contact decades ago, asked the old
man if he would allow him to take him for a little drive. The old man was puzzled by
the request, but the pastor insisted that the old man would not be sorry, so he agreed.
The pastor drove the old man to the neighborhood & the old home he had
driven the old woman to just the night before. After he knocked on the door,
the pastor witnessed the greatest reunion he could have ever imagined.
(They say ‘love is grand’…but ‘vintage love’…a love that can last a lifetime…
Oh my goodness…what a priceless treasure!)