As Marie made breakfast, the rest of the house lay silent in slumber. Sometime had past and her husband appeared in the kitchen followed by her twin girls.
“Where’s Matt?” Marie asked her husband.
“Probably still sleeping, he’s all tuckered out from basketball practice last night” he answered.
“I’ll go check on him” Marie said.
As she approached the door, she heard sobbing. “What’s the matter, honey?” she asked.
“I’ve been praying every night for a bike, for two weeks now. Every single day. I wake up and there is never a bike here” he answered.
“Oh, honey, it doesn’t work that way” she said.
”When Aunt Betty had cancer, she prayed and had us pray too and it went away” he answered.
“Oh, that’s different” she answered.
“How? Remember when Dad lost his job? You two prayed for a new one and even for help with the bills” he defied.
“Yeah, that’s different too, dear” she answered. She really didn’t know what else to say. “Let’s get going, we’ll be late for church. You want to see your friends at Sunday school, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do” he conceded.
* * * * * *
“You can do anything?” Matt asked his Sunday school teacher, “And all you have to do is ask for forgiveness? And everything is ok? I still get to go to heaven?”
“That´s right, thanks to the sacrifice Jesus made for us!” his teacher dutifully answered.
* * * * * *
Later that day, Matt was shooting hoops with his friends. He saw a group of kids he didn’t recognize and one of them had a shiny red bicycle that caught his eye. Matt couldn’t focus on the game. All he could think about was the bike.
Dinner time came and the kids started to disperse. Matt told his friends he was going to hang around a little longer and practice free throws. The other group of kids was on the other side of the park and the bike was left unguarded.
Matt snuck over, mounted the bike and took off. Matt had never felt so alive in his few years on the planet. “God answered my prayers!” he thought.
He hid the bike in the trash heap his family called a garage. No one but him ever entered so he knew the bike would go unnoticed.
Later that night as he lay down to go to sleep he prayed “Thank you Lord for my health, my home, my family and my new bike. Bless my friend, my family and one more thing; please forgive me for stealing today. I’m very sorry. Amen.”
By Ryan 