There once was a poor farmer. One day while he was out, he came across a wounded crane that had been shot in the wing with an arrow. The farmer took the crane home and nursed it to health, eventually releasing it back into the wild.
Not long after that, when the farmer returned home, he found a beautiful girl waiting at his door. He took her in for the night, and they quickly fell in love and were married. One day she suggests she weave him some cloth to sell at the market, so she locks herself in a back room to weave, making her husband promise to never see what she's doing.
Eventually, she returned to him with a beautiful piece of silk, which the man in turn took to the market, and gained a lot of money. He came home and asked her to do this again, which she did. This continued for quite a while, until one day he opened the door to the back room where she was weaving.
Upon opening the door, the farmer did not see his wife at the loom, but instead the crane picking out some of her last remaining feathers. Because he had opened the door and gone against his promise, the poor crane flew away never to return.
Now, we can obviously see the main moral of this story, and if I wanted I could type a little about my thoughts, and how this little story convicted me, replacing the crane wife and her respective cloth with a myriad of things. With you, it may be different. I'll just close with Scripture.
Rev. 2:1-7
To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: 'The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.
"'I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.'"
"The Crane Wife 3" by The Decemberists"And I will hang my head, hang my head low."
