How Forgiveness Was Found In A Book Store

How Forgiveness Was Found In A Bookstore

Once upon a time in a huge metropolis called Danville, Va., there was a bookstore called Books A Million. It was run by a young lady named Suzan Ellaneous. Since she wasn't married, most of the customers called her, "Miss Ellaneous." Her 14 year-old niece helped her when school was out. Her name was Caroline Steak, but people called her, "Miss-Stake." That was a fitting name for her since it seamed that was what she made a lot of. Suzy's friends called her Suzy Q, although nobody knew what the Q was for. Some said it was for quick because that's the kind of work she did. Others said it stood for Quality since she was really compulsive about every task her boss would assign her to do. Yet when she got fussed at for putting the books in the wrong places constantly, others said it stood for Quit since that was what it caused her to do.

There was a brand new best-seller book that had just come out which was really difficult to keep on the shelves because so many people were constantly wanting to buy it all the time. It was a really humorous one written by an author named Cuz Roye who was trying really hard to become famous at something because he had more talents then most people, but they were not being used at all. By the time Cuz's books finally got to the store, they would sell out so quickly the owner would have to order some more of them. Eventually they were almost sold out except for one. The bookstore owner was forced to raise the cost of that book since so many people were trying to buy it.

It soon reached the point where there was only one more of those awesome books left in the store, so that meant the owner of that store had to take bidding to sell it to the highest bidder. When somebody offered to pay 4 times what the cost was, the store owner said, "Sold!" and went to give it to the happy bidder, grinning like a mule eating briers, (mules lip corners go up when they do that).

Yet when the auctioneer went to give the book to the happy guy who had bid the highest, he was appalled to see it wasn't there. Somebody had stolen the precious book.

Well, to say the bookstore owner was absolutely irately livid would have been a gross understatement. That guy was actually seeing, "read," and that was not what people did to the books he sold either. Since he had just seen it several seconds before, he knew the thief had to still be in the store. That's when he yelled, "Lock the doors quickly! Somebody has stolen the last book Cuz has written!"

That made everybody there gasp or put their hands on their mouths. Somebody had done a dirty-deed, and that somebody was still in the store. That was when he put an employee at each exit. Those books Cuz had written were the biggest-selling books ever, second only to the Bible.

His daughter stole a beautiful mink stole once which made him furious at her because she, "stole a stole." Yet that crime was minor compared to the heinous one that had just taken place in that store since it was unforgivable.

Now, that book was one of, if not the must easily read- ing books ever written, at least it was to the kind of people who appreciated that awesome sense of humor the author had put into all the books he'd put out. People were not allowed to leave the parking lot until the book and the mink stole that was covering it up had been found. It was quite major, although some, "majors" in the United States Army were stumped. That was truly a federal offence, one punishable by a huge fine and-or a long imprisonment.

All of a sudden somebody screamed, "I've found her! I have the thief here! I've just caught her red-handed!"

That's when some of the less with-it people asked, "What color were her hands before she was caught?" The young lady who had the book was absolutely crushed when she saw the police come running at her from all sides. They cuffed her and led her to the squad car, but before they put her in it, a voice called out, "Wait a minute! Don't arrest her! It's my fault! I'm truly sorry about that!"

It was the voice of none other then Cuz. He had heard the commotion and didn't want that lady to be put in jail because of something he had done. He would have felt miserable knowing that her life had been ruined forever if she was convicted of such a crime and did't want to be the cause of that happening to her. As he approached the shivering woman who had been cuffed, she began to cry. Yet Cuz said, "Sister, if that book means so much that you have to steel it, you can just have it! I do not want you to hate me the rest of your life! Take it, and God bless you!"

That made most of the people who were watching that happen say, "Awww!" They had never seen such forgive-ness come from a person who had every right to say, "Take her away and lock her up!" Nobody could understand why he did not want that crook just to be sent to the hoosegow.

The unsaved people asked, "Why did you let her go? She stole the book that you wrote! She deserves to be in jail! You really are the dumbest creature on the planet, Cuz!"

"I would feel awful knowing somebody's life had been ruined because of me!" said Cuz with a smile. "Besides, my best Friend forgave the people He loved for beating Him unmursifully then nailing Him to the cross! So I forgive her! The Word says, 'If you forgive others their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will forgiveth you!' I cannot cast the first stone because I am not without sin! If she tried to steel my book, it must mean she can't afford to buy it! The Lord wouldn't be happy about that! Just give her the book free, but that's the lowest price I am willing to go for it!"

Then the bookstore owner was mad because a person who had tried to steal a book from his store was not being punished. Instead she was rewarded for shop-lifting. Yet when he saw the woman crying and hugging Cuz, even his cold heart was warmed at the forgiveness he was seeing. Even his wife, who happened to be there at the time, had tears protruding down her face since she'd been so touche by the forgiveness she was witnessing. Everybody else in the store was smiling. Many of them were mad, but the rest of the customers said, "Awww! That was very sweet!"

That woman whom the book had been given appologized with all her heart for trying to steal that book. Several weeks later she saw Cuz in a parking lot and ran to him yelling, "Wait! Wait! Please stop! Don't leave quite yet!"

Then she pulled out from her purse the cost of the book she tried to steal, but Cuz said, "No mam. You keep it. If I accepted that it would take away from my blessing to you."

What could have been an awful thing for that woman had been turned into a blessing for her. Besides that, Cuz was also blessed with the awesome feeling of knowing he had done something that would improve one person's life. Actually, according to Mathew 25 # 40, Jesus said, "What yee hath done unto the least of these my bretherin, yee hath done it unto Me." So everybody was blessed by it. That woman never tried to steal anything anything else from that day forward. On the way out the store, she bumped into a guy with a brief case, I mean literally, so they both fell to the sidewalk. When their eyes met, they both had a feeling that they'd met Mr. and Ms. Wright. Actually, the guy had brothers named, "The Wright Brothers," who were book authors. They' "authed" the story about Suzy's experience with Cuz. They were like that couple who invented the airplane. They couldn't go, "wrong" with that name. Suzy went to law school and learned how to sue people who had been treated badly which was a good reason her name was, " 'Sue' -zy." She soon became one of the finest lawyers in the entire metropolis of Danville. She married the other lawyer who was defending a case which was far from likely. One year later they gave birth to a pare of mixed-twins, that's one for each parent, and so, as the best-written children's stories of all-time will officially finish up with,

"THEY ALL LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!!!"

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The end. By, Cuz Roye.