Salvation

Before I get to the topic at hand I've got a quick "moral story" from my North Texas days:

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a creature of habit - I've been that way as long as I can recall. So it should come as no surprise that on "school days" I would arrive at the local Jack-In-The-Box promptly at 10AM (opening time) for my "main" meal of the day. That left plenty of time to eat, drive to school, park and get to my 11AM English class.
Now - at that hour there were never any other customers - just me and the manager (who acted as cashier and cook until the rest of the staff got there). And since there was nobody else around we would "shoot the breeze" while he fixed my Jumbo Jack - it was all very informal... BTW: I always got my meal "to go" and ate in my Charger... I'm not quite sure why - I guess I've just always preferred to dine "a la car"... (Yeah - that was intentionally punny.)
Then one day while I was eating my burger I checked my wallet to see exactly how much money I had left and discovered that I had at least a dollar more than I should have. That's when it dawned on me that amidst all the banter I must have forgotten to pay for my lunch - so I ran back inside to take care of it... The manager (who was aware of my financial situation) was impressed by my honesty, and from that day forward he always made me a fully loaded "custom" burger (the way he liked it) - much better than a stock Jumbo Jack... And the point is that honesty does pay :-)

Now - on to the topic:

I had been hanging out at Steve's house quite a bit because he was the only one of my friends who wasn't completely "weirded out" by my mom being in the hospital. And it was around that time that Steve's father (who was a union steamfitter) decided to build a room in the garage. It didn't strike me as unusual because he was always doing projects around the house and (as he explained) it would be nice to have an extra room for when relatives came to visit...
Now - there is a "side story" involving that extra room. It doesn't have much of a point, but it is somewhat "illustrative" so I'll go ahead and tell it:
I was over at Steve's house when his dad backed the pickup into the driveway and went into the house. A while later he came back out, looked in bed of the truck and said: "OK guys. Real funny! ... Where did you hide the lumber and the rest of the paneling?" And we were like "What are you talking about?"... Steve's dad started poking around in the garage and looking around the house saying "C'mon guys - I'm serious! Where did you put it?" And we're like "Honestly! We didn't touch anything!"... It took at least 5 minutes to convince him that it wasn't a practical joke - he must have lost the load. So, at that point we all hopped in the truck to retrace the route back to the lumberyard..
Now - the interesting thing about riding with Steve's dad is that you rarely knew how fast you were going. That's because speedometers only go so high... For example, the one in his '69 Chevy C20 pickup (396 4-bbl) only went up to 100 MPH so it was incapable of indicating how fast we were going as we headed east on 1171 toward Lewisville (keeping an eye out for a pile of lumber as we drove).
When we arrived at the lumber yard without having seen a trace of the missing materials Steve's dad was somewhat despondent, but then one of the workers came out saying "It's about time you showed up! You took out of here so fast the load slid right out of the back of the truck." The yard workers had even picked it all up and restacked it on the loading dock for when he returned... And that's the end of the story... Like I said - not much of a point, except to illustrate that practical jokes and driving fast were in Steve's DNA :-)

I suppose it's fairly obvious where this is going but I certainly had no clue at the time. (I don't think Steve even knew...) When the room was finished (paneled, carpeted and air conditioned - complete with a locking door) Steve's dad handed me the keys and said "I built the room for you. You're welcome to stay as long as you want."
I was absolutely speechless... The thought that people who barely knew me would welcome me into their home was a possibility I had never even considered...

When it comes to Christianity I've met a lot of folks who talk the talk, but I have never known anyone who walked the walk the way that Steve's parents did...

And that's how Steve and I became "brothers"...