God is with us

God is with us yesterday, today and forever. I was reading a line from Psalm 143, it said, “I remember the days of old,”[1] and my mind drifted back to when I was ten years old.

    Our family had moved from Columbus, Ohio to a place in Virginia called Profit. The nearest Catholic Church was in Charlottesville. We were able to go to church once a month only and that was because the priest kindly scheduled, for our special benefit, a 12 noon Mass one Sunday a month (this was in “pre-historic” times). In order to get there, we had to flag down a train at our rinky-dink RR station, and off we went to Charlottesville.

    Then, one summer day, when my uncle Will was visiting us from Columbus, he became quite ill. A doctor from Charlottesville diagnosed “summer grip.” Well, it wasn’t, because he quickly became much worse.

    One day, my mother asked us to sit at his bedside for a while. He was very weak. He was asking me very anxiously to find his Sacred Heart badge. I nosed around, found it, and brought it to him. He asked me to pin it on his nightshirt, which I did, and immediately a little smile touched his lips and he relaxed and patted it there near his heart.

    Later they had to flag down a train to get him to a hospital in Charlottesville. When they took him off the train there was a priest right there waiting to get on to go to another sick call.

    The train was ready to move and the priest anxiously called out that he would be back as soon as he could. It didn’t happen that way. The person he went to see was dead when he got there and, by the time he got back, my uncle was also dead.

    Over the years, I can still see my uncle’s little smile as he patted his Sacred Heart badge that rested against his heart.

    Joyfully, now, I thank God for His loving redemptive message to a little 10-year-old girl whose love for Him has grown steadily over the years.