He Lost Everything

Acts 9:1-6

Psalm 30

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-19

I can't get my neighbor's story out of my head. I saw him across our driveway as we pulled in. My daughter was sleeping in the back, safe and sound. Stepping out of the car, I asked him how he was. Six foot four and not less than three hundred pounds, he would be an intimidating presence if it weren't for his jolly countenance. But today his face was dark like a thunderstorm.

"Very bad. Bad, bad bad," he said with his thick Sudanese accent.

English is new for him since coming to the United States sixteen months ago with his wife and two kids. I love seeing the added color in the otherwise homogenous Grand Haven, MI, but for them it must be hard. She is Muslim and has nowhere to pray. With much help they have found employment and a way to get around on their own. The kids have been the stars of the neighborhood. Out of their dark chocolate faces their pearly smiles would welcome us as we drove down the street. They would run to the car to say hello to my daughter and teach her to high-five. But all that was about to change.


"My wife, she took our children and left," he said, trying to find the words. "Last night I came home and they were gone. They are gone. This is very bad."

He showed me a note scribbled with pencil on a folded piece of lined paper she had left atop the now empty drawers. I couldn't read the arabic. We're leaving you and the children are safe, Hamid summarized.

We sat together as Hamid retraced the story over and over. And now it's in my head and in my heart. I'm afraid for him. I have pain for his wife. My heart breaks for their kids, who must feel so confused. I don't know why his wife left with his children. Is he abusive? Is she depressed? The answers are unclear. But what I do know is this family has been torn apart.

What am I to do?

I want to run away from his story. He reminds me how suddenly my life can be taken from me. When the disciples saw Jesus crucified, I wonder if the same impulse surged through their nerves, quickening their feet to run, run back to Galilee where it was safe, run back to where their families were, run back to their jobs - and pretend like none of this happened.

But then they heard the Voice of the Beloved, the Voice of the crucified one, the Voice calling to them over the mist of the early morning waters and they couldn't ignore it. Plunging and splashing, they came gasping to shore in disbelief to the one who was killed now serving breakfast over a fire. Laughter and tears, memories, and a meal shared. And hovering like the fog of the lake was the haunting reminder that they too would one day lose everything for His sake ...and it was going to be okay.

I'm listening for the Voice of the Beloved, and as much as I want it hear it in scripture or the clouds, it is in the crying voice of my neighbor who has lost everything. God give me grace not to run away but to enter in and discover the presence of Christ in the face of loss.