photo #2806792

Isaiah 53:1-5He is despised and rejected of men; a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not (53:3).The Heartbreak Of Rejection A few years ago I heard a story that is one of the saddest stories I have ever heard. An American soldier from the Midwest was seriously wounded in the conflict in Vietnam, and having been nursed back to health, he returned to the States. When he reached San Francisco, he telephoned his father and mother and said, “Mom and Dad, I have come home.” And you can imagine how happy those parents were! The boy said, “Mom and Dad, I have a friend. He has been with me in the war and I am bringing him along. Is that all right?” They replied, “Yes, son. We would love to have him.” The boy said, “But he has been wounded. You do not realize how badly he has been hurt. He has to be cared for. He has one eye that is gone, an arm that is gone, and a leg that is gone.” “Well,” said the father and mother, “we do not know about that. Son, we could not take care of a boy like that. There are government hospitals to take care of boys with such extensive injuries. We will help you take the lad to a hospital and there they can take care of him.” The boy replied, “All right, I will be seeing you soon.” The next day the father and mother received a call from a morgue in San Francisco. “We think we might have your son. Do you have a son from the Vietnam War by this name, and is this your address?” “Yes,” they said. So they went and identified the lad. The boy had taken his life the previous night, in a cheap hotel in San Francisco. When the couple saw his face, they immediately recognized him as being their son. But as they looked more closely, they saw that he had one eye gone, one arm gone, and one leg gone. Their rejection was more than he could bear.