"It don't matter if you believe in God; Nick, he believes in you.” Mother Abigail From "The Stand" by Stephen King
Every now and then I've read a book where I finish it and think, "Wow! What did I just read!?!" Stephen King's "The Stand" is one of those books. I read it the first time in 1986 when I was 25 years old and have read it once a year ever since.
Not to turn this post into book report assignment for Junior High English, it is the story of how the world nearly ends when a deadly strain of influenza gets out of a military facility in the southwest. The virus is estimated to be fatal in 94% of the cases. "The Stand" is the story of the survivors and what happens to them.
One of my favorite characters in the book is Nick Andros who is deaf and mute, and through a series of events and dreams ends up in Hemingford Home, Nebraska at the home of Mother Abigail who has been chosen by God to make the stand against evil. Mother Abigail has a deep and abiding belief in God. Her very essence radiates her love for and belief in God. She is 108 years old.
Nick does not believe in God. His life has not been easy. His father died before he was born; prenatal trauma has left him deaf and mute; his mother dies when his still a young boy; he ends up in orphanage where he is tormented and abused by the other children there. If you want to know Nick's journey, read the book. Really, it's a good one.
Mother Abigail has told Nick that God has his finger on him among others to lead in the stand. Nick conveys to her that he does not believe in her God knowing he could hurt or anger her by telling her this. Instead she looks at him kindly and says the quote I used to start this post.
Mother Abigail could have said the same to me.
I compare my ongoing journey to God to the board game my sister and I used to play called "Chutes and Ladders." By shaking a die, we'd move our game pieces closer to the top of the board to be the winner. Along the way there were ladders which could bring us closer to the top and closer to winning. However, there were also chutes (like slides) and landing on one of those would bring us down toward the start of the game. The closer we got to the top, the shorter the ladders became and the longer were the chutes the bottom.
Like the game, through the years, the closer I felt I was finding God's grace, I would land on a chute and sometimes I would end up only a little bit away from Him--usually though it would be down the long slide, and I would feel very far away. Sometimes I didn't even want to roll the die any longer I was done. Like my sister, who didn't want me to stop playing with her, God didn't want me to stop moving towards Him. It didn't matter if I didn't think I believed in God, He believed in me. The closer I came to accepting that God wasn't giving up on me, the more I continued on the journey toward the top of the board to be with him.
I still have times when I slide down the chutes, but the slides downward are shorter. There aren't many ladders up, but there don't need to be because I need to make the journey in short steady steps. The Covenant Group helps me to continue moving towards finding that grace.
Stephen King is probably not the first writer anyone would think of when asked to think of a writer who has moved you on a spiritual journey. However, that one phrase, "he believes in you" was the start of a 30 plus year journey of finding my way to Him.
Like the game, through the years, the closer I felt I was finding God's grace, I would land on a chute and sometimes I would end up only a little bit away from Him--usually though it would be down the long slide, and I would feel very far away. Sometimes I didn't even want to roll the die any longer I was done. Like my sister, who didn't want me to stop playing with her, God didn't want me to stop moving towards Him. It didn't matter if I didn't think I believed in God, He believed in me. The closer I came to accepting that God wasn't giving up on me, the more I continued on the journey toward the top of the board to be with him.
I still have times when I slide down the chutes, but the slides downward are shorter. There aren't many ladders up, but there don't need to be because I need to make the journey in short steady steps. The Covenant Group helps me to continue moving towards finding that grace.
Stephen King is probably not the first writer anyone would think of when asked to think of a writer who has moved you on a spiritual journey. However, that one phrase, "he believes in you" was the start of a 30 plus year journey of finding my way to Him.
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