The Light of
the World
By Cheryl
Eggers
The young
pastor looked around at the full table in the tiny kitchen of their home. It
was a very small house. There were 2
bedrooms, one all three children slept in.
The girls had bunk beds on one side and on the other was the crib for
his son; this left about 2 feet of space to walk between them. The living room was long and narrow. It was hard to believe that until 2 months
ago, the church he had started in North Platte, Nebraska, had met in that
little room. By the time they had 25
people attending regularly, there was no room!
He smiled at his wife; she was happy that a church building had been
found in time for Christmas. Her
grandparents had arrived yesterday in time for the Christmas program. They were given the big bedroom and he and
his wife slept on the hide-a-bed couch in the living room. Tonight, the kitchen was full. They tucked
the highchair into the corner and brought the piano bench in for the girls,
they could squeeze around the table once the food was ready, but they had to be
told what order to come in so each person could get to a chair.
Church had
been canceled for tonight, it was Christmas and many of the families that
attended live out in the country on farms and ranches. They had decided to cancel the Wednesday
evening service and had announced it on Sunday. He was glad as a blizzard had
hit this afternoon and people would stay home. Still, something was nagging at the back of
his head, “What if someone came and the doors were locked?” and a phrase from a song was repeating over
and over in his mind,
“Send the
light, send the light…
Send the
light, the blessed gospel light….
Send the
light, send the light.”
If only he could
remember the rest of the song, maybe he could stop the round and round words.
As the young
pastor and his family joined hands to pray, he knew what he had to do. As he finished his prayer, he looked up and
said, “If we eat quickly, we have time to make it to the church and be there if
anyone comes.”
His wife
looked up in surprise and said, “But you cancelled the service tonight! And
with the storm…” Her voice trailed off.
“I know,” he
said quietly, “but I believe that God wants us there tonight.” He looked over at his wife and her
grandparents, his eyes begging them to understand. His wife blinked once, twice, and then nodded
and began hurriedly serving the simple supper.
They ate
quickly, they young pastor heard the wind howling and knew that visibility was
marginal at best. He looked out the
kitchen window. He couldn’t see the car from the house nor the hospital across
the street.
As soon as
everyone was finished eating and the food was put away, they bundled the
children in coats and wrapped them in blankets and carried them out. They
helped grandma down the steps and into the back seat of the old station wagon
with his wife and they were off.
The roads
were beginning to drift, but as they drove, he could see just enough to drive
the 8 to 10 blocks that separated the little house from the church. A wind gust
blew the snow until he couldn’t see, he thought about the little home they had
left, warm, bright, smelling of the Christmas tree and the supper that his wife
had quickly put away before they left. “Was
he insane to come out on a night like this?” he wondered.
They arrived
at the church sooner than he expected and they carried the children in. His wife’s grandmother unbundled the
children, while he and grandpa began turning on lights. They turned on every
light until light beamed out from every window.
His wife
came upstairs from where she had started the coffee pot and set out the
leftover cookies from the Christmas program.
She headed to the sanctuary and sat down at the piano and began to
play. She was singing “Oh, Holy Night”,
when her grandfather joined her, their voices rang out into the night.
The young
pastor went to the door, and stepped outside to look around, the song repeated
in his mind. He remembered another line!
“Send the light, the blessed gospel light, let it shine from shore to shore,”
only his mind sang “from open doors”. He
stepped back to the doors and threw them open, letting the light spill from them,
but this let the storm in.
From the
sanctuary he heard the song change, “Joy to the world”, only this time grandma
had joined the song. She couldn’t carry a tune and she didn’t care, she loved
to sing and would sing loudly, explaining that the Bible said, “’Make a joyful
noise unto the Lord…’ it didn’t say it had to be in tune!” Grandpa and the young pastor’s wife sang
louder to help cover her joyful noise.
This made the children laugh, it was happy noise.
The young
pastor waited at the open door, shivering slightly, he heard the doors going
into the sanctuary squeak and he looked over his shoulder, his 8-year-old
daughter was peeking out, and light was shining around her head, giving her a
halo. Quickly he reached for the doors
and threw them open, too. More light to
shine out into the dark and storm. His
wife and her grandparents had just finished the song and came to see what was
going on chattering away. His wife was
so much like her grandmother, both were vivacious and talkative, and tended to
the loud side. He was quiet and somewhat
shy. He stood in the doorway, shifting
his feet from side to side, rubbing his hands together, waiting. His wife’s grandfather joined him. He thought he saw something move in the
dark. “Is anyone there?”.
As the
pastor and his family sat down to supper, about 2 miles away, it was already dark.
24 year old, Doyle Sherrill was trying to stay awake. He was afraid if he fell
asleep, he would never wake up. It was
so cold. He was jammed into a hole under
the freight train. He hadn’t expected
the blizzard. He guessed he should have
gotten off the train with the rest of the traveling men, but he had heard that
North Platte, Nebraska was a good place to stay for a while. He reviewed his instructions and thought
about getting in someplace warm. He had been told to wait until the train
slowed down as it passed under the overpass and roll off. The hotel that would let the travelers stay
would be directly across from the tracks.
Suddenly the
train began to slow and then lurched to a stop. His heart sank, he knew that
the train had stopped too soon. He
guessed it was because of the storm. He
slowly stuck his head out and looked both ways; he did not see any train cops,
so he rolled out and slid down the train grade.
He could not see anything, and he could only go to the right, as the
wind was blowing too hard to walk into it to the left. It blew him along
towards town. He did not know when he
entered town, by then he was shuffling along, his feet barely leaving the
ground. He was so cold that he was
afraid if he stopped moving, he would never start again. He had served in Vietnam and had been in many
bad situations that caused him to fear for his life, but he knew that he was
closer to death in this blinding snow that he had ever been during his tour of
duty.
As he
thought about life and dying, he remembered his mother. He had left for war and returned to find that
he was alone, his dad had died in the Korean war and his mom had died while he
was “in country”. He knew something was
wrong, but it would be years before they would learn that he and so many others
had come home broken and it came to be known as PTSD.
To keep
going he tried to remember his mom, he smiled or tried to, his cheeks were too
cold to move, and he began humming a song his mom had often sung. He chuckled as
he thought about her singing. She tried to sing, she was tone deaf, but still
loved to sing. One of her favorites
began running in his mind, “The whole world was lost in the darkness of sin.”
“Well, that
is certainly true,” he thought, “the whole world is lost in this blinding snow.”
“The light
of the world is Jesus.
Like
sunshine at noon day his glory shone in,
The light of
the world is Jesus.
Come to the
light, tis shining for thee…”
He moved
slower and slower, the wind calmed for a moment and he thought he heard
singing, he wondered if it was angels singing in heaven. Had he stopped without
knowing it? He forced his feet to keep moving. Then the music was louder and it
was not angelic! Someone was singing like his mom, off key and loud! He still did not see anything, but he turned
towards the sound, his feet kept moving, and he peered into the snow and night.
Praying for a ray of light.
He wondered
how it could be both white and dark at the same time! All he wanted to do was
stop and lay down, he knew he didn’t dare. There, was that a light? Lights in
the through the storm became suddenly brighter. He stumbled towards them. The
words of his mother’s song echoing in his head.
“…sweetly
the light has shined upon me,
Once I was
lost but now, I can see,
The light of
the world is Jesus.”
His toe hit
a curb and he almost fell then staggered forward onto steps. His hands searched
for a railing, they were too cold to hang on to it. “Is anyone there?” he heard
someone call, and he was helped into the church.
I know this
story sounds like a sappy Christmas miracle movie, but the simple story is true.
The young pastor was my dad, I was 8 years old and the young traveler came to
Christmas and stayed until the storm left.
I do not know what they thought that night, I can only imagine, but I do
know that God’s providence brought them together that night. We took him home,
fed him, warmed him up and gave him a place to sleep. Daddy understood the
young man as he too had seen war, and they talked until late in the night. I
don’t know how we all fit into the tiny house, but somehow it stretched to be
enough. Doyle left after the storm the
next morning, and several years later he told me that meeting my Dad that
Christmas had changed his life. Every
few months he would send us a postcard and he returned to visit a few times
over the next few years. I don’t know
what happened to Mr. Doyle, but his story has always stayed with me.
2020 has
been stormy, and we don’t know what 2021 will bring, but right now it is like a
brewing blizzard on the horizon. As we enter the new year, may Jesus, the Light
of the world. shine through us to those lost and dying in the storm.
Copyright 2020 Cheryl Eggers
