A man was struggling down the road, stumbling.  He bore huge chains, with sharp, jagged edges.  The chains, painful even to look at, were engraved with ugly words: hatred, bitterness, lust, greed.  The chains lacerated him, tearing apart his soul with worry, poisoning his heart with depression; resentment, fear and guilt obscured his footprints.   The shear weight of them was crushing; they dragged him towards the ground.  At first, he struggled violently, but the chains only cut him deeper, they entangled him worse, choking out his life. Clinging to him, they pierced his heart again as he struggled.

Eventually, he lost everything, even the will to fight.  He realized he was dying.  All of the burdens he had carried for years finally had won.  Even as he lay down on the ground to give up the strangling chains gripped tighter.  The man cried out in agony and despair, but there was one word left.  

Help.  Just this simple word.  He didn't have enough strength to speak enough breath to moan.  But as an inaudible whisper, using his very last breath he let it out.

Somebody heard. He came.  Strange to the suffering man, but the man was not strange to Him.  The stranger had tears in his eyes as He looked down at the defeated, tortured man.  With compassion that blows me away even now, he took the chains in His own scarred hands.   With a voice, etched in my memory forever, so full of compassion, he healed the man's infected soul.

The man lay on the ground, panting. He had nothing he could give.  Eyes full of compassion and unconditional love told him, "It's all right, you can trust me."   With arms that had been tortured for this very purpose, he took the man home.

---------------------------------------- ---------------------

Why do I remember it so well?
  Who was the man?

That man was me.
  Those burdens?

Those were my sins.
  The stranger?

If you don't already know, that stranger was Jesus Christ, he's ready to take you home.  He's been standing beside you all this time, waiting for you to say his name, waiting for you to give up, and give your burdens and your life into his hands.

He's waiting for you to say the last word.