Journey…

You’re awakened in the dead of night by air raid sirens, but their warning is too late. Before you have a chance to figure out what is going on and leap out of bed, the bombs are already falling. They shake the walls at first as the waves of enemy bombers begin to pass over the outskirts of your city, but quickly wall shaking turns into window shattering… not the neighbor’s windows. Not the corner store’s windows down the street – YOUR bedroom windows. ALL of them.

Glass flies everywhere as roaring thunderous explosions, hundreds of them at the same time, erupt from every direction at once…and suddenly, you feel yourself thrown backward to smash against your bedroom wall as part of your house…your home…takes a devastating direct hit.

And all you can do is lay there like a rag doll covered in debris and blood while your life burns around you.

You’re a 6 year old girl living in your beloved home country of Germany in the throws of war, and you’re utterly terrified.

And amid all the fire and destruction, something of immense value silently breaks to shatter in a million pieces.

And a new journey begins for the girl. One of leaving behind her faith and the blind believing that there was a God out there somewhere who cared…who loved.

How could HE be possible? She thought to herself as she lay broken and crumpled.

God leaves when the bombs fall.

He turns his back when we fall in fire.

He simply isn’t there. He never was.

A fairy tale.

I heard parts of this story during a care review in the senior home where I work. Parts of what I wrote above were possibly made up…I don’t know how old the girl was when the bombs destroyed her home, and shattered beyond repair one of her tiny eardrums.

I don’t know if the allied bombers caught her sleeping, or if she was running to an air raid shelter.

I don’t know if she was with her family, or alone.

But the destruction is true. And the breaking of a little girl’s faith is too.

Fast forward some seventy years.

I walked to the door of the lady’s suite and introduced myself. I didn’t say that I was the Chaplain, but just told her my name and welcomed her to her new home. She seemed happy to have company as she was still trying to get used to the idea of living in a new place.

She welcomed me in, and we started to talk. I asked her about where she was living before she moved here, I asked about where she grew up, about her family, her children, her husband who had passed away years ago now…and we talked easily together for the better part of an hour. The conversation was so much fun!

Finally she asked me what I did, as she noticed my name tag and the keys and pass card I wore around my neck.

“I’m one of the chaplains here.” I answered.

She fell silent for a moment, and so I asked her if she or her family had ever been involved in a church before.

She smiled. “A very long time ago….very…very long ago. But we left that behind.”

I nodded.

“You didn’t like it?” I asked.

She shook her head, but looked down and away from me for a second.

Then she looked up again. “Do you belong to a church?” She asked. “Is there one here?”

I told her where I attended church, and shared a little about the chapel services we hold every Sunday, and the hymn sing times we have mid week, and let her know she was absolutely welcome to attend if she wished.

Without skipping a beat, she leaned forward and said she would love to come if I would be there, as she had enjoyed very much talking with me.

I let her know when the services happened, and then gave her a hug. It was time for me to go.

That day I went home thinking to myself how neat that interaction had been. I hadn’t gone in with an agenda other than to try and get to know her.

But when I had left, I was struck by how eager she had seemed to join us. And I was impressed with how powerful simply listening and showing interest in someone else’s story could be…

I knew I hadn’t done anything special, but instead felt VERY aware that God had touched my new friend and made her want to connect with Him.

But what I didn’t know, was the back story I shared at the beginning of this post.

That came out a week or so ago as our care team spoke with the lady’s son during a care review.

He was happily shocked to hear of her great interest in spiritual things, and that she had already attended a mid week service as well as a chapel service.

He shared that in all his life, he had never seen his Mom interested in God.

Until now.

I was stunned as I listened to my friend’s son. And humbled beyond words. I was witnessing something that has been a lifetime in the making: a story that had been unfolding for some 70 or 80 years, was suddenly having a plot twist right before my eyes and ears!

The story of a little girl…who is now a very old and gentle lady being pursued by a very real God.

I don’t dare to give a pat answer of where God is when life seems to fall apart around us, when what we live is so heavy or difficult we feel like we shatter inside.

I know there is unspeakable that people live through.

And I don’t know what God is doing when those things happen. I just don’t, and I don’t pretend to. I’ve had my own times of feeling utterly broken by life, and wondering how this could be happening…and have also wondered where God is and how He could let this happen.

But somehow….though He may be hard to see…hard to feel…hard to hear…somehow in the middle of that black storm, He IS there.

Walking so close that we can sometimes miss him.

I went to a butterfly garden back in the summer. It was amazing to see so many different kinds of butterflies all in one place…flitting and flying every which way.

But what was most interesting to me, was how some would land on people’s shoulders, or arms, or even on their head and just sit there without them even noticing it until a friend or family member would turn to talk , and then suddenly squeal with excitement and point: “You’ve got company!”

Saw that play out dozens of times, and even had a few land on me without me knowing it.

On the way out of the garden, you need to walk through an enclosed room that has floor to ceiling mirrors on each wall, and a large sign on the door that leads out into the gift shop. The sign says: “Look carefully before you leave, you might have picked up a passenger!”

Maybe God is like that sometimes. So close to us that we find it hard to see Him….but always there. And like with my lovely new friend, even when we decide we CAN’T see him, even when we decide He ISN’T real or that he simply doesn’t care…

He doesn’t stop his relentless pursuit or always seeking or always knocking on our heart’s door…