Glimpses

There were people I met who I knew had been through the door and lived on the other side of the wall.

I met someone who talked vividly and dramatically about Jesus Christ. He told a friend that Jesus Christ was as real to him as she was. His confidence was shocking to me, yet I didn’t think he was psychotic or having some strange cultist experience. There was no weird other worldly quality to him.

He told me of a women’s Bible study which I eagerly joined in late June. I knew immediately that these college women were different from me. I could tell when they prayed that their prayers were going to someone. I was very conscious that my prayers seemed to be hitting the ceiling and rebounding. I also recognized their genuine love for me. I asked a lot of questions—I didn’t understand why God let His people suffer, I didn’t understand why Jesus died on the cross—I didn’t understand a lot, but I believed I had finally found some people who knew God and had some answers.

Late one afternoon I was talking to one of the women, and after she listened to me she said, “You know, Iwana, God loves you so much that even the red hairs of your head are numbered.” I was touched by her evident care for me and the thought that God could know me in such detail, but I still felt so far from Him.

That night she dragged me over to talk with a staff member of the Christian group sponsoring the Bible study. I was reluctant to speak with him, thinking he probably had no desire to talk with me; however, we sat down together on the grass outside the dorm, and he turned in the New Testament to Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.