Max Lucado Story

I read this the other day and thought you might like it as well.

"Max Lucado tells a lot of good stories but my favorite by far is about a mom and her daughter living in a small Brazilian village. You probably have heard this story before, but it’s worth hearing again. Because the story reminds us what do when we are at the bottom.

The mom’s name was Maria and the daughter’s name was Christina. They were all each other had. Maria’s husband, Christina’s father had died when Christina was a baby. And Maria worked hard as a maid and did what she could to provide a stable, loving home for her daughter.
And now Christina was old enough to begin to help with the household duties, maybe get a job and help out. But Christina was independent, and the notion of following tradition of marrying a young man from the village and raising a family just did not appeal to her at all. Not that she couldn’t have her choice of husbands, it seemed that every boy in town wanted to ask her out. But she didn’t want that.

She often spoke of going to the “Big City.” She dreamed of trading her dusty village for the bright lights and excitement of Rio. Just the thought of this horrified her mother. Maria would say to her daughter, “People don’t know you there. Jobs are scarce and life is cruel. What would you do for a living in the city?”

Maria knew exactly what Christina would do or would resort to doing. That’s why her heart sunk when one morning she awoke only to discover that Christina was gone. She knew immediately what she would have to do. She threw some clothes in a bag, gathered up all her money and ran out of the house.

On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing: pictures. She sat in one of those dollar photograph booths. Closed the curtain and spend all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black and white photos, she boarded the next bus for Rio de Janeiro.

Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too proud or too stubborn to give up. Sometimes when pride and hunger meet people will do things they never would have done. Knowing this, Maria began her search. She went to bars, hotels, nightclubs any place that had a reputation for prostitutes. She went to them all and in each place she left her picture taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she left a note.

Well, it wasn’t long before both the money and her pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home. She didn’t want to because she thought she might never see her daughter again but she had to go home.

It was a few weeks later that young Christina walked down the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired and her eyes spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream became a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to go back home. Yet her little village was in many, many ways too far away.As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes spotted a familiar face. On the lobby mirror was a small black and white photo of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned red and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the picture from the mirror. Written on the back were these words: “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”1

Wow! “Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home.”
She did.
What a powerful message! "