Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Integrity (04/11/24)
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TITLE: Where is Hope? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lois Eaton
04/17/24 -
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Hans dragged himself along the street. What would his wife say? How would they live? Would they starve to death? Or would they be executed as traitors – he and his wife Freda, their children and their grandchild?
Where was God?
It seemed so long since he had felt any hope. God seemed to have deserted Germany.
He felt like a bag full of holes - useless.
It had been bad enough when his sons were conscripted, six years ago in 1938. They had not been seen for years, although occasional letters arrived – short and terse, stating only that they were very happy to be serving their country. His daughter’s husband had also gone soldiering, but only survived three months. His daughter had only just learnt that she was expecting, when the news came. The baby gave them hope. Why would God send them a beautiful granddaughter if there was none?
Getting old had pleased him. It kept him out of the fighting. Although the factory jobs he was forced to take sapped the life out of him. He had loved his life as professor of mathematics at the Berlin University. But he had made the near-fatal mistake of speaking out when Jewish colleagues were dismissed from their jobs. Six years ago; but it seemed a lifetime away. So much had happened since.
Every day, Hans and Freda prayed for the war to end. They prayed for repentance to sweep over Germany. But it seemed they prayed in vain. Faith was all they had.
But today he had lost his job, told he was too old and shaky to be useful. Would Freda cry? There was no respect for the old in Germany in 1944.
He hoped Freda would be home before him. She usually was – her factory was just five minutes’ walk from their cottage.
He was the man. It was his job to provide. Always he had – until now. Could they live on Freda’s tiny wage?
He passed the home of the local Nazi leader and smelt good food cooking. He knew he could have had good food too – if he had joined the party. But he knew God had not wanted him to. Because of his age he got away with it. Others who refused were dead. At least he was alive – just.
Tears welled up as he remembered his childhood, and the faith of his family and friends. Where had that world gone? Would it ever come back? He started humming some old hymns. There was comfort in them. The people who had written them had also lived in great danger because of their faith. But they had been true to God and so now today their hymns were still blessing people.
Hans wished he could be a blessing too. Sometimes when he prayed he felt that God was actually doing something good in response, yet he never saw the answers. Maybe in the next world he would find out that he had been useful after all – even if only through his prayers. Back in ’38-39 he had felt more useful because of the work he did smuggling Jews out. Neither he nor Freda had ever been caught, praise God.
But that was long ago.
Home at last, he dragged his exhausted, shaky body inside, still feeling like a bag full of holes.
Freda was looking nervous.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I wasn’t sure about how you would feel about it. I know we are not young anymore,” she replied.
“About what?”
Silently she lead him to the little hideaway they had built into the wall. The Nazis had never found it - yet. Calling softly, she opened the door.
Hans found himself staring into the skeletal face of an old work colleague. Herzel nodded to him then struggled to say, “I know it is not fair of me to come here but I had nowhere else to go. If you tell me to go I will go. I understand.”
Hans gently drew the weaker man to his feet and hugged him.
“You are welcome. God will care for us all. He always has. He will provide. We don’t have a lot but what we have we share, and God multiplies things when necessary.”
He did not feel like a bag full of holes anymore. He knew God still had work for him to do. He just had to keep on believing. Simple.
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