Margaret was bored. Really bored. She was sitting on the front porch swing, idly going up and down and looking longingly across the street at the park.
The park was a wonderful place, with swings and a slide and a merry go round and a small creek running next to it. But Mom had said, “You go down and wait on the porch and mind you don’t go over the road to that park and get your new dress dirty before church.”
Margaret sat on the porch, swinging sand wishing.,
Moms took so long to dress. Last time she went to check, Mom had started to get ready but the baby needed changed so she went and got the baby ready, and now she was getting herself ready. Margaret thought a moment. She stepped off the porch and looked up at the window into Mom’s room. She sighed. Now Mom was sitting there brushing her hair and that could take hours, or it seemed like it. She looked at the park and sighed as she made her way back to the porch.
Up, down, up down. Mom said not to go over the road. Sigh.
Wait a minute!
You see, it’s those wait a minutes that get us into trouble. It generally is the devil giving you a hint of how to go around a rule. In this case, Mom had said don’t go over the road to go to the park. Margaret had a funny thought about going under the road and started to laugh, but that’s when she saw the big pipe that ran under the road to take water from this side when it rained over to where it could join the stream across the way. She left the porch and looked at the pipe. It was big. She got down and looked and then stood up and looked, and then down. It was big enough to crawl through and she wouldn’t be disobeying because she wasn’t going over the road, she was going to go under the road.
And it was no sooner thought of than she was in that pipe heading to the swingset.
She had a lovely time for a few minutes; she swung on the swings, ran over and tossed a couple pebbles in the stream, and then climbed up the tall ladder to the slide. That’s when she looked at home and realized Mom was no longer in the window brushing her hair. That meant she must be dressed and Margaret had to get home soon. She slid down and hit the ground running, stopping herself just as she hit the edge of the park and realized, can’t go over the road, have to go under the road. She dashed over to the pipe, got down, and started to crawl back.
That’s when it happened.
See when Margaret was going to the park, the bolts holding the pipe together were pointed toward the park, but on their way back, they were pointed the wrong way and Margaret’s dress got caught on a bolt. Try as she might, she could not get the dress to come loose. Worse, when a car went over, it sounded like thunder and she thought about the last spring rain they had when this pipe nearly filled up with water.
“Oh, no,” she thought, “I’m going to drown in muddy water.” She started to cry.
She called out but no one could hear her. (She didn’t know, but Mom and Dad were walking around the yard looking for her and getting frightened when they couldn’t find her.)
Down in the pipe, Margaret did what she should have done back in the beginning: she prayed. See, you can’t sin and pray at the same time. Had she prayed about going to the park, she might not have disobeyed.
“Dear, Lord,” she said. “Please let me get rescued. I am sorry I disobeyed. This is all my fault but please forgive me and help me get home.”
And that’s when a little Nash rambler, which was a type of car back in the old days, came trundling down the road and died right over top the pipe. It wasn’t unusual for the rambler; they just did weird things like that. The driver sighed, got out, kicked the tires, and opened up the hood. He bent over to look at the engine and he heard the little car call, “Help me! Help!”
He stood straight up. He’d never had a car talk to him before.
He leaned down to look under his car and be sure he hadn’t hit anyone while driving. That’s when he noticed the pipe. He went over and looked in the pipe and there was a little, very dusty girl there.
“Are you supposed to be in that pipe?” he asked.
“No, and I want my Mommy!” she wailed.
“Now just a minute, I see some people over there.” He stood up and called out to the people (who were Mom and Dad), “Are you missing a child?”
Dad ran over, closely followed by Mom, who was holding the baby. The man pointed into the pipe, and Dad leaned down to look in. He saw Margaret and took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Dad got down and reached in and grabbed Margaret’s hands and pulled her out – but her brand-new church dressed ripped right down the back where it was stuck on the bolts.
She was a sorry sight, dirty and dusty, torn clothes and scuffed shoes. Mom sent her to the house to change into her old church dress and put on her old shoes and wash her face. Dad thanked the man for finding his daughter. He helped him get the car started, the man left, and the family went to church.
Now after church, Margaret found out what being grounded on a long, pretty, sunny spring afternoon felt like as her friends all ran to play in the playground and she had to sit in a chair and watch them play without her. However, that’s what happens with getting into those ‘Wait a minute’ ideas. It’s best to stop yourself right in the middle and start to pray when those start up. Remember you can’t pray and sin at the same time.