Fairy Story

This may sound odd, I know, but my 'take home' from the talk at the church meeting this morning was a fairy tale. See what you make of it. Once upon a time there was a wicked witch who used to lure weary travellers into her home, inviting them to spend the night in a huge downy bed. A more luxurious, sleep provoking bed you could not imagine. But there was a sting in the tail of this bed - if the traveller slept late in the morning, he would be turned to stone and placed in her garden as an ornament there. Joining the many others that had suffered the same fate before him. Knowing he was stone. (That alone gave me the shudders!) Anyway, one day a handsome young man showed up and the witch rubbed her hands in glee as he agreed to spend the night in the bed. A chambermaid had seen him though, and in the manner of fairy tales, had fallen in love with him on sight. So, to save him, she sprinkled nails and other sharp objects under the mattress. He tossed and turned, lying awake most of the night and getting madder and madder. As soon as it was light, he arose, muttering under his breath, not realising that the very thing that had made him uncomfortable had saved him from a living death, captivity in a stone body. The point to ponder for me is this: Can too much comfort pamper us and pander to us until, at last, our hearts become stony? Heardened to the suffering of others? Can it make us rigidly stuck in your own attitudes? Have a good week, peeps.