Under the bombs

Wednesday 19 May 2021

They abandoned me, I who am a source of living water, to dig cisterns, cracked cisterns that do not retain water. Jeremiah 2:13

Come back to him from whom the Israelites turned away profoundly ! Isaiah 31.6

Under the bombs

A young German student had heard the gospel more than once, but her heart remained closed. She wanted to live her life and that is what she did until the terrible day of the great bombardment of Hamburg during the last war. In a few hours, a gigantic fire devastated the ruined city. In her frantic flight, the young girl found refuge in the Lutheran church in a nearby village, with a few people. These poor people, who had lost everything, wept and lamented. The pastor came to see them, listened to their complaints and understood their distress. Then he asked for a little silence : "My dear friends, while listening to you, I heard in the midst of your complaints, which I understand, a sentence which I would like to speak to you. Someone of you said : God we has given up. This is not true. You are wrong. Here is the truth : it is we who have forsaken God !"

In telling us this episode fifty years later, the one who lived it adds : "That's all I remembered from the words of this pastor. But this sentence was like an arrow hitting me in the heart. Over the crash of the bombs, the voice of God spoke to me, perhaps for the last time. I answered his call and I never left my God."

Source (The Good Seed)