A
young soldier was in his bunkhouse all alone one Sunday morning over
in Afghanistan.
It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for
some reason hadn't made a noise.
The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week.
As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid
them out across his bunk.
Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with
the rest of the platoon?"
The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some
time with the Lord."
The sergeant said, "Looks like you're going to play cards."
The soldier said, "No sir, you see, since we are not allowed to
have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided
to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."
The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"
The soldier said, 'Sir, I've been on the march for about six
days, I had neither Bible nor prayer book, but I hope to satisfy
you, Sir, with the purity of my intentions.'
With that, the boy started his story:
You see Sir, when I look at the 'ACE', it reminds me that there is
but one God;
And
the 'DEUCE' reminds me that the Bible is divided into two parts; The
Old and the New Testaments;
And
when I see the 'TREY', I think of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost;
And
when I see the 'FOUR', I think of the four Evangelists who preached
the Gospel. There was Matthew, Mark, Luke and John;
And
when I see the 'FIVE', it reminds me of the five wise virgins who
trimmed their lamps. There were ten of them, five were wise and
were saved. Five were foolish and were shut out;
And
when I see the 'SIX', it reminds me that in six days, God made this
great heaven and earth;
When
I see the 'SEVEN', it reminds me that on the seventh day, God rested
from His great work;
And
when I see the 'EIGHT', I think of the eight righteous persons God
saved when He destroyed this earth. There was Noah, his wife, their
three sons and their wives;
And
when I see the 'NINE', I think of the lepers our Saviour cleansed.
And nine out of the ten didn't even thank Him.
When
I see the 'TEN', I think of the Ten Commandments God handed down to
Moses on a table of stone;
When I see the 'KING', it reminds me that there is but one King of
Heaven, God Almighty;
And when I see the 'QUEEN', I think of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
who is Queen of Heaven;
And the 'JACK' or 'KNAVE' is the Devil;
When I count the number of spots on a deck of cards,
I find 365, the number of days in a year;
There's 52 cards, the number of weeks in a year;
There's 4 suits, the number of weeks in a month;
There's 12 picture cards, the number of months in a year;
There's 13 tricks, the number of weeks in a quarter;
So you see, Sir, my pack of cards serves me as a Bible, Almanac and
Prayer Book.
