The Human Spirit

I attended a prayer service last night for a young girl recently diagnosed with  a potentially deadly disease.  It was a powerful showing of God's grace through community and prayer.  I was struck by the beauty and maturity of the words of a friend of this young girl, no more than 12 years old, who courageously read a letter she had written.  In her words she decided not to focus on the fears and anxiety of the situation, but rather on the things this disease could not take from her - beauty, friendship, family, faith, love.  It was a moving recital that filled the church with tears - tears not wrought of fear, but of hope....

The Human Spirit, fortified in faith, is an amazing and unpredictable thing of beauty.  I am continuously and constantly humbled and awed by the exquisitely powerful light God shines into seemingly hopeless situations the world looks upon as filled with despair...

"Room Four [the “Death Row” hospital ward of the TB sanitarium/Soviet prison at Tirgul-Ocna, Romania] was the scene of great kindness and humanity. Prisoners from other wards often came to spend the night with us, helping the dying and offering comfort.
At Easter, a friend from his hometown brought a gift wrapped in a piece of paper for Gafencu, the former Iron Guard trooper. “It’s been smuggled in,” he said. “Open it.”Gafuncu undid the paper to reveal two lumps of a glittering white substance—sugar. None of us had seen sugar for years. Our wasted bodies craved it. All eyes were on Gafencu, and the prize in his hand. Slowly he wrapped it up again.“I won’t eat it just yet,” he said. “Someone might be worse off than I during the day. But thank you.” He put the present carefully beside his bed, and there it stayed.A few days later, my fever increased and I became very weak. The sugar was passed from bed to bed until it came to rest on mine.“It’s a gift,” said Gafencu. I thanked him, but left the sugar untouched in case the next day someone should need it more. When my crisis passed, I gave it to Soteris, the elder of two Greek Communists, whose condition was grave. For two years the sugar went from man to man in Room Four (and twice it returned to me). Each time the sufferer had the strength to resist it."

--Richard Wurmbrand, Christ in the Communist Prisons