Christ Church Bromley

Nick's recent update on the forthcoming focus in Christ Church on a Passion for Life reminded me of something I read in a book before Christmas.

I find the testimonies of other people really encouraging. I love hearing how people came to know Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. I get really fired up when someone explains that they have always known Jesus and how the faith they were raised with is now the faith they personally stand on.

Before Christmas I was reading Band of Brothers, a superbly welll written and extremnely readable history of Easy Company, the famous WWII paratrooper company of the US 101st Airborne Division, which was written by Stephen E. Ambrose. Toward the end of the book I read a paragraph that had me in tears instantly. Suprisingly, this paragraph was not an account of heroic bravery in battle. It was not an emotional depiction of the realities of war. Instead, it was a paragraph describing the conversation between a granddad and his four year old granddaughter in 1991.

As I have mentioned, Band of Brothers is the story of Easy Company, from its creation at Camp Toccoa in the US through to the very end of the war in Hitler's Eagle's Nest. In the closing pages of the book, Ambrose provides a brief summary of the post-war careers of the key characters.

Sgt. Wayne "Skinny" Sisk was a hardened veteran by the end of WWII who had trouble overcoming the fact that he had killed many men whilst serving on the front line. After the war, he turned to drinking in order to drown away the flashbacks that he had now he was a civilian once again. In a letter to his old commanding officer, Sisk recounts that conversation with his granddaughter.

My sister's little daughter, four-years-old, came into my bedroom (I was too unbearable to the rest of the family, either hung over or drunk) and she told me that Jesus loved me and she loved me and if I would repent God would forgive me for all the men I kept trying to kill all over again.

That little girl got to me. I put her out of my room, told her to go to her Mommy. There and then I bowed my head on my Mother's old feather bed and repented and God forgave me for the war and all the other bad things I had done down through the years.

(From Band of Brothers, written by Stephen E. Ambrose (published by Simon & Schuster UK), p299.)

Just four years old, yet that little girl knew her granddad needed to turn to Jesus in order to be saved. More importantly, her love for her lost graddad and his need to hear about Jesus overcame any fear she might have had about approaching her bitter, drunk grandfather.

As I thought about that testimony of a little girl leading her granddad to Jesus, and as I wiped away the tears of joy at how such a man was saved, I found myself encouraged and fired up once again. I thought to myself 'well, if that four year old girl can do it, then so can I'.

How about you?