The Atonement

The man was left off easy for what he had done.  All those he stole from would have liked to see him pay back the money, but since he spent it all on drugs he had none left. The judge only demanded that he was to serve one hundred hours of community service.  
There was a church around the corner that needed the sanctuary painted, so he was sent over to help paint it.  All the plaster on the walls and high ceiling was cracked and the paint was peeling off.  The painters were glad to see him, because they needed somebody to do the scraping, caulking, and all the rest of the dirty work. He tried to convince them that he was afraid of heights, but they just laughed at him, so up the scaffold he climbed.  On his way up, there was a portrait of Jesus above the altar that kept staring at him as he stared back at it.  “What are you looking at?” he thought to himself.  “I don’t give a damn about you, and don’t care if you give a damn about me. When this job is over, I don’t ever want to see you or think about you again.”
When the day was over, he was exhausted.  He went back to the room he rented above the tavern, drank a beer, laid his head upon the pillow, and fell fast asleep.  The work that he did tired him all out.  The next morning he was up again, ready to go to work.  He picked up his daily diary that he always wrote in, then off to work he went.  He was used to writing things down, like who owed him money for the drugs he sold to them. He also liked to keep track of what he did and how he felt about things.
When he arrived at the job, the painters were kidding him, “Whatsa matter?  That little bitty work ya did yesterday got you all tired out?  Ah-h, you poor ba-by.”  Back up the scaffold he climbed again. As he stared at the portrait of Jesus, he wasn’t so bitter this time.  It seemed that everybody was against him except Jesus.  At least he had one friend.  Every day he saw him, he liked him better.   He seemed to enjoy the work a little more each day.  It was like a different person was climbing up that scaffold.  He got to enjoy the fellowship with the painters.  When he came to work, he was so enthusiastic about getting started.  After work, he stayed in the sanctuary and read the bible.
One night after he got home from work, he reached in his pocket to get his diary, but it wasn’t there.  He hoped it fell out at the church.  He was desperate to write something down, so he just wrote it on a napkin until he got to work the next day, his last day.  
When he arrived at work, the priest saw him and invited him to come into his office.  “Oh no,” he thought.  “I did something wrong.”   “Have a seat,” he said.  “Did you lose something?”  “Y-yes, I did, Father Murphy.  It was a diary I keep with me.”  “Yes I know.  Hear it is.   Do you want to read some of it to me?”  “O.K,” I said.
“As I saw Jesus for the first time, I blamed God for the life that was given to me.  After seeing his portrait every day, I could hear him saying that he was always my friend no matter what I did.  The fast and easy life that I lived drove me away from him.  Only hard work is the remedy to restore the faith in myself and God.  Since labor is in loving God, whose dream was for everyone to be diligent, I do it to bind myself to him and to others.”  
The next Sunday for the sermon, he read some of his diary to the congregation.  It was beautiful.  He became a faithful member and gladly went about his work, painting, fixing things, and giving everything he could give.  His atonement was in deed successful.