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
