Victoria - a parable by Rowen Albertson May 1993

There was once a seventeen-year-old orphan girl named Victoria, who lived with her foster parents in a small city in the Midwest. She often had dreams that seemed very real. She dreamed of beautiful things, frightening things, of boys, of jobs, of school, of friends, and the like.

On night she dreamed that she met a handsome, strong, fun-loving guy in a city called Salem. In the dream, she fell in love with him and married him.

When she awoke the next morning, she wondered if such a wonderful thing would ever really happen in her life. She thought about that dream a lot during school that day.

Upon arriving home from school that afternoon, she noticed her name hand-written on an envelope in the mail. As a high school senior, she was accustomed to receiving computer-generated mail: applications and propaganda for colleges, military careers, and other such things. But this letter was different. She excitedly picked up the small, plain envelope, anxious to see who had personally written to her. She glanced at the postmark. It had been mailed five days before in SALEM, but there was no state or zip code readable.

Quickly she opened the envelope to see who had written. Inside she found a greeting card. "Thinking of you" was written on the front and on the plain, blank inside someone had neatly penned:

Dear Victoria,
For many years I've waited for you to be my companion. Though you don't know me right now, I'm sure that we will one day be married. I know all about you, and I have appreciated you for many years. I've waited until now to get in touch with you, because I knew that you weren't ready for the permanent relationship that I desire to have with you. But now, I sense that you are ready. Please come to me. I am sending the money for your expenses to arrive here in two weeks. I know that you'll never be sorry that you came.
Love, Joshua, from Salem

Victoria looked again at the envelope, and found that there were $1000 in cash that she had overlooked.

Now, holding the card and the money in her shaking hand, she was deep in though. Should she go? Who should she ask? And where in the world was Salem? She'd never heard of such a place - except in her dream. How could she travel to a place she didn't know the way to, or even what state or country it was in?

She went and grabbed the family atlas from its place on the shelf and began to search for a place called Salem. Going to the index of the United States, she found six cities by the name Salem: in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, in Ohio, in Oregon, in Illinois, and in Virginia.

She closed the atlas in frustration mixed with anger. Nobody could ever really love me. She thought. But then she realized that she was still holding two $500 bills in her hand.

That evening as she and her foster parents sat at the table eating, the doorbell rang. Victoria excused herself and ran to see who it was. There on the doorstep was a very good looking guy holding an envelope. As she opened the door, he smiled and said, "Victoria? Joshua sent this to you." He handed her the envelope, turned, and left. She went directly to her room and hid this envelope, unopened, on the bookshelf between some old books. She returned to the table full of though.

With the evening meal finished and cleaned up, she decided to go to the mall, to walk, to think, to dream...

As she walked, her thoughts turned more and more to the $1000 in her purse. What could she buy that she had always wanted? New outfits that would be the envy of the girls at school, a new hairdo, new jewelry more expensive than others her age could afford?

And that's what she did. Within two hours before the mall was closed, the money was gone. She returned home, excited, and anxious for the next day when she could show her new self to her friends.

She though about that unopened envelope, but decided not to open it just yet.

Her friends were indeed impressed with her purchases. She began to be very popular. The most sought-after guys asked her to go out with them. She soon forgot all about her appointment in two weeks. She now had friends!

What she did not know was that Joshua was a multi-millionaire. At the age of 22, he had inherited his family's business. He had everything that he had ever wanted. He had purchased an airline ticket for Victoria, with all the detailed instructions that she would need to come to him in Salem. He had delivered the ticket and instructions to her door himself that evening. He was at the airport in Salem on the appointed day with his seat reserved beside hers, to be her traveling companion on the new journey.

The End


The above parable is about Jesus' gift of Salvation. Will you reject his offer like Victoria? or will you choose to follow the "Way, Truth, and Life" to heaven? Jesus said, "No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6B)

Some Devotional Thoughts

"Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; But happy is he who keeps the law." Proverbs 29:18

Revelation is knowing what God is saying to us through His Word. I think that without knowing or caring what God wants of us we become like the people described in Ephesians 4:17-19, when Paul tells us that we are to no longer walk "as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness..." We certainly do NOT want to live as those who do not know "the life of God"!! It sounds very much like God wants to change our lives so that we are not like the people who don't follow God.

The second part of Proverbs 29:18 gives hope, "happy is he who keeps the law." In James 1:25, we find that knowing God truly and obeying His "rules" from our heart brings liberty -- not to sin, but to give ourselves to God. This is what it says: "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and contiues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

Romans 6:16: "Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaved whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?" From this we learn that whether we are sinning or serving the Lord, we are slaves. But we get to choose who our master is! When sinning we are slaves of Satan, but if we are doing righteousness we are bondservants or "love-slaves" of God.

The next verse, Romans 6:17 shows us an important piece of the puzzle. "But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered." If we are going to obey the doctrine of the Lord, we have to do it from a submissive heart.

"Having been set free from [slavery to] sin, [we can become] slaves of righteousness." (Romans 6:18).

Going back to Proverbs 29:18B, "happy is he that keeps the law," I am reminded of 2 Corinthians 3:6 which reads, "...the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." If we're just obeying rules because we have to, but our heart is not obedient, our spiritually wrong heart is "killed" in the doing thereof. But if we "have been crucified with Christ;" and "it is no longer [we] who live, but Christ lives in [us]," then we can truly have life and pleasure in obedience - knowing Who we are serving -, and "the life which [we] live in the flesh [we] live by faith in the Son of God, who loved [us] and gave Himself for [us]." (Galations 2:20)

Conclusion: Let us therefore, having considered these things, "stor[e] up for [our]selves a good foundation for the time to come, that [we] may lay hold on eternal life." (1 Timothy 6:19)