Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: REMEMBER (10/19/17)
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TITLE: Story girl | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lisa Enqvist
10/21/17 -
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Christine was traveling with her missionary parents, stopping at different places, staying with strangers in various houses. That was the only life she knew. She did not understand the true meaning of the word “home.”
A story about a home somewhere far away was often in Christine’s dreams. The people who lived there were Grandpa and Grandma. Their home was called Grammys.
Each time the family moved her older siblings asked,
“Why are we moving to a new place again?”
“Why can’t we go back to Grammys?”
“When are we going back to Grammys?”
Reaching each new place, they waited eagerly together with their mother to see if a letter from someone at Grammys had reached their current destination.
The letters were a link to a place of stability beyond Christine’s experience. She became homesick for Grammys, that home somewhere far away.
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Another story she wanted to hear was about her brother Leo in heaven. He died several years before she was born. Leo had loved to listen to a song called “There’s a friend for little children above the bright blue sky…”
Leo was three years old when someone gave him a gramophone record with that song. He listened to it every day. He remembered all the words and sang along:
“There’s a home for little children
Above the bright blue sky
Where Jesus reigns in glory
A home of peace and joy;
No home on earth is like it,
Nor can with it compare;
For everyone is happy
Nor could be happier there.”
A war broke out in their country when Leo was two years old. He feared the sound of sirens and of bombs falling over the city where he lived. His mother comforted him when he was afraid, saying, “God has sent his angels to be with us and to keep us safe. We all have a guardian angel.”
Leo became sick and needed injections every day. He could not eat Grandma’s sweets. Leo said he wanted to go home to Jesus where there is no war and no pain anymore.
Leo’s illness became severe during the war. He only wanted to hear the song about “the home of peace and joy.” One week before his fourth birthday, he was carried by the angels to that home.
Christine told her mother often she wanted to go and meet her brother in heaven. When Christine was three, she became very ill with typhoid. She said once more she longed to go home to Jesus and Leo so she won’t have to move to another house again.
Christine’s mother was afraid she would lose another child. When Christine had fallen asleep, her mother went outside and cried to God,
“Please God; remember your promise when this child was born. You said you had a plan for her life even when the doctor said she would never be normal. These three years have been a miracle. All the signs of her early illness have gone. Fulfill your plan.”
The stars shone brighter than ever up in the black sky. Christine's mother thought about Abraham standing under those same stars thousands of years earlier. God fulfilled his promise to Abraham and promised to bless all generations through him.
Christine was thirsty when her mother came into her room. Earlier she could not eat or drink at all. In the morning the doctor was surprised to see Christine sitting up and smiling and ready to leave the hospital.
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Christine remembered her mother’s stories; most of them were from the Bible. She recognized her childhood homesickness in the many stories referred to by the writer of Hebrews 11. The people mentioned there also longed for the place called home. The place God has promised and prepared for everyone.
Their faith kept them strong through their many trials as they searched for the city they were sure they would reach someday together with all past and coming generations who sought for and remembered the promises of God.
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