England’s Queen Mary was strolling through London with some children when the group was caught in a violent storm, and the British monarch was forced to take a shelter in the porch of a nearby home. Realizing that the rain would not stop for some time, she knocked on the door of the house and asked the woman who answered it for an umbrella.

The Queen’s deliberately casual clothes and the hat that partially covered her face disguised her true identity, so the woman offered her an old, moth-eaten parasol which has been lying in the attic for many years. After all, she thought, no one would expect her to give the new an expensive umbrella she had to a stranger.

The next day, a man with gold braid on the uniform and the insignia of Palace Guards visited her. The Queen sends you this letter and also thanks you for the loan of your umbrella,” he said. The woman was so overcome with shame and regret that she bursts into tear.

“Oh, what a marvelous opportunity I missed to give my best to my Queen” she wailed.

How many of us will force to make the same confession when we stand before the King of Kings?”

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