Led

Some time ago, I delved a little into the past of my family on my father’s side. The reason was a request from relatives in Canada who were conducting their own research into their ancestors. During my inquiry, I came across—not for the first time—a handwritten manuscript by my aunt, who passed away in 2008.

Born in Bessarabia (in present-day Moldova), she and her parents experienced firsthand the flight to Germany that they, as ethnic Germans, were forced to endure as part of Hitler’s “Heim ins Reich” campaign. I found it both incredibly fascinating and often deeply moving to learn what my grandparents and their children had to endure back then. Through these written memories, they—whom I had known until their deaths but who had somehow remained strangers to me—became real people. People who, just like me, lived through fears—albeit in some ways that were unimaginably more severe. People who had their doubts and questions, who worried about the lives of their loved ones and their well-being, people who clung to God and yet also doubted His guiding hand because the loss was almost unbearable. These are people who have helped shape my life, even though (in the case of my grandparents) I only had occasional contact with them. At several points in the report, it became clear that it was a close call, and their lives—and thus mine—could have taken a completely different turn.

This journey into my family history has given me much to think about. During those difficult times, my grandparents faced challenges and decisions whose outcomes they could not foresee. Often, decisions were simply taken out of their hands because they had to follow orders. But they experienced that, even in all the chaos, God never lost sight of them. “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” Psalm 32:8 (©NIV). Sometimes it was so dark that all they could do was get down on their knees and plead with God. Other times, they encouraged one another with songs. But even when the path was extremely difficult, they experienced God’s eyes guiding them.

I want to draw courage from this for my life. How many decisions have I—or have we, as a married couple—already made in our lives? When I look back today, I’m often amazed at all the good and blessings that have come from those decisions. And that is exactly what I want to remind myself of when the next decision comes up and I feel like a blind person who has to choose a color: It is God who has guided my life long before I even existed, and it is He who will guide me at every day that lies ahead.