No Hands But Ours

During the Second World War, a quaint little French village was bombed by mistake.  The villagers were forewarned by air-raid sirens and cleared out of the village before the bombing started.
 

Through tears of sadness, they sat on a nearby hill all that night and watched the flashes and fires as the bombs leveled their town. Later they returned to their village and began digging in the rubble for anything salvageable. There wasn't much left.

 

But, all the villagers joined together in the effort to rebuild their village from the bottom up. As the rubble was cleared from the village square, several pieces of white marble were found, the remains of the statue that stood in the square. The villagers called on the best sculptor to rebuild the old statue as a remembrance of the rebuilding of their village.

 

The sculptor worked for years on this great challenge. Finally, as the remaining bit of paint was put on the last building in the quaint village and the streets were washed out for the last time, a veiled figure stood in the square.

 

The villagers held a great three-day celebration to commemorate the rebuilding of their village. As the last feature in the celebration, the villagers all met together at the town square for the unveiling of the statue.

 

Finally the veil was removed. There in the square stood a figure of Christ exactly as in the visitors center in Salt Lake City, with his hands outstretched to all.  But this statue had no hands, because a bomb blast hit too close and pulverized them beyond repair.  So the inscription, instead of reading as it once had, "Come unto Jesus," now read, "I have no hands but your hands".