April 16, 2007

Rewards for Labor

A FATHER AND MOTHER came into my office with their son. They wanted to tell me in his presence how much it meant to them for their son to be here as a student.

They were happy that he had established good marks in his studies, but the most important thing was that since being here he had been definitely converted, and they found him to be a new person.

They told how he gave a bright testimony among all his young friends in the neighborhood when he came home on Christmas vacation, and how proud they were of him and his Christian character.

You can imagine the joy this report brought to me. My thoughts often return to the first disastrous fire in 1913, leaving us with nothing but a hundred acres of what was considered to be commercially worthless land. At that time God brought to my attention Isaiah 61:3, “That they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.” Those words have been wonderfully fulfilled over and over in the lives this place has touched.

The words of those grateful parents made me feel that all the pressures, the problems, and the difficult spots were nothing to be compared with the results in the life and character of young people. Truly, “they who go forth with weeping shall return with joy.”

They are the shoot I have planted, the work of my hands, for the display of my splendor. (Isaiah 60:21)

(By Dr. R.A. Forrest (1881-1959), Toccoa Falls, Georgia, TFC Founder and President. Excerpt from Toccoa Falls News, March 1954. Taken from the book: Leaves From the Tree God Planted © 2006 by Toccoa Falls College, p.24-25)