A Judge’s Haunting Words

[217 words] I went to Sunday school when I was small and learned all about God. After I was married I decided to go again and take my children. I couldn’t persuade my husband to go, but the children and I went regularly for a year. Then I skipped a Sunday. And soon I skipped two or three. Then we went only on special days. Soon I joined a bowling team that competed on Sunday. I could go to church and Sunday school, but I would have to give up my bowling. Bowling won the battle. Not long ago in a courtroom I heard a judge say, “Twenty years!” He was pronouncing sentence on my 21-year-old son — a punishment for a robbery which ended in the death of a man. The sentence might have been less, but my son took a sneering, defiant attitude all through the trial, ridiculing…