Happy Easter!

Hope: This is not the end of the story

Fear is a powerful emotion. When I was studying for my Ph.D. in counseling one of my professors quoted another theorist saying that it is not pain that causes the damage to people’s lives but rather the actions people take to avoid feeling the pain. It is the fear of pain that causes many problems for people today.

With everything that is going on in our country I have to admit I am afraid. I see my government become increasingly involved in banking, the auto industry, health care, and student loans. I see my government grow itself, and spend money it does not have. I see my government talk about things like the fairness doctrine and I am afraid for my countries future. I am afraid for my future and mostly I am afraid for my children’s future. My fear is increased because of my family history. Before coming to the United States my family had lost almost all of their earthly possessions and in some cases their lives. In Eastern Europe my family witnessed the rise of “big government” and the loss of freedom.

My mother was born in Romania in an ethnically German farming town. When World War II began the country sided with the axis powers. When they began rounding up the Jewish residents my family helped hide a cousin, the Jewish man she was married to and the rest of his family. My grandmother took on the job of taking them food. Early in the war one of my grandfather’s cousins complained to his superiors about what was being done to the Jewish people. He was immediately transferred to the front in Russia and was dead within the month. My Grandfather decided it was time to go. He deserted the army, packed up his wife and two children and took them to Germany. He took a job in a bomb factory. My mother was just two at the time. Things in Germany were very hard. The regular bombings and the food shortage caused my Grandmother to take the children and return to her parent’s farm in Romania. Shortly after the return to Romania the country surrendered. They were hopeful to surrender to the US, but the US allowed The Soviet Union to handle the situation. The Russian army moved in and began the work of establishing the new government. The young ethnic German citizens of Romania were rounded up and shipped to Soviet labor camps. My Grandmother was one of these people. Around 65% of those sent died. My grandmother was lucky. She returned 5 years later. During her absence my mother remained on the farm with my great-grandparents and watched as all of their possessions were “collectivized”. Everything was taken, homes farms, equipment, all of it. Those with larger homes were forced to take in boarders. However, after a time ownership of homes was returned because the buildings fell into such disrepair that the government was unable to pay for the upkeep of the structures. To me this clearly demonstrated a key principal of human behavior. People take care of things that they own and do not show the same care for things that they are “given” by the government.

Growing up in Romania my mother learned many things, among them to not speak freely outside of the home, to avoid the police and if confronted fain stupidity, and to trust no one. My mother was able to leave Romania when she was eighteen. My grandfather, who had tried unsuccessfully to get his wife and children to join him in Germany, had been sponsored by a cousin to come to the United States. This cousin and her husband had provided my grandfather a job and the opportunity to gain his citizenship. When he became a citizen he was able to have his family join him. The Romanian government agreed to let them go. On the day my mother was to come to the United States her village came to see the family off. Many in the village were in tears wishing they too could leave. At the train station the upper level government official questioned why so many people were crying. At finding out that my family was going to the United States the official stated she understood their tears. It was a terrible fate to have to leave Romania for someplace as terrible as the United States. This caused everyone in the village to laugh. Another key principle this highlighted for me was that the only people who did well under big government was big government.

My Father was born in the Ukraine also in an ethnically German farming village. His family witnessed the rise of the Soviet Union. One set of my Great-grandparents starved to death during the grain famines as Stalin set about breaking the will of the Ukrainian people. My other Great-grandfather was arrested and placed in jail where he was tortured nightly. While he was in jail the government levied tax upon tax on his farm until the family had no choice but to turn it over to the government. When he was released from jail he was a broken man who was never the same again. When my father was just a baby his father was arrested and placed in jail. They day the Soviet’s supposedly shipped him off to the labor camp my Grandmother went to the prison to see him one last time. She never saw him. She did however see someone else wearing his coat get put on the train, but she maintains it was not him. Since he was over six foot five it would seem that he would be easy to pick out giving some support to my Grandmother’s assertion. Some time later she received a letter from the government saying that he died while serving his “sentence” at a labor camp. In the end what the family does know is that he was never heard from again.

My Grandmother, her three children and her mother left the Ukraine ahead of the retreating German army in World War II. They spent some time in a displaced persons camp in Austria before making it to the American section of Germany following the War. My Grandmother got a job cleaning a church. While she was there an American priest and Lutheran minister came on a humanitarian mission. My grandmother was the only one at the church when they arrived. She arraigned accommodations for them, offering to put one of them up in her apartment. It was this Lutheran minister who helped bring my Grandmother and her children to the United States. My father was eleven years old when they sailed to the United States. In the US my father’s family had a one bedroom apartment. My father and his brother slept on a box spring, while my great-grandmother slept on the mattress. My Grandmother slept on the floor. She worked cleaning houses to support her family.

From those troubled beginnings my parents worked their way through night school. They earned advanced degrees and put their own children through college and medical school and a Ph.D. program respectively. My family is in many ways the quintessential American Success story. They achieved the success that America had promised to those willing to work hard. Today I see my government turning its back on the very things that made my families’ success possible and instead turning to the type of policies they had escaped in Romania and the Ukraine. My mother would tell the story of how her grandfather would read the “state” newspaper and shake his head saying, “I don’t know what they are writing about. This is not what I saw happening.” Since the latest presidential election I have found myself saying those same words and it has scared me.


I find myself questioning what my response to this growing fear should be. This Sunday as we celebrated Palm Sunday the priest urged the congregation to remember Holy week and the need to celebrate not just Easter Sunday but to remember the week leading up to it. He urged us to remember the death of Jesus not just his triumph over death. Listening to him talk I was drawn to think about what it must have been like to be a follower of Jesus to watch him humiliated by the soldiers, beaten, ridiculed, and then killed on a cross between two criminals. I thought about what it must have been like to be one of the apostles gathered together in a room after their Lord was killed. The fear, the confusion, the sadness they must have felt must have been almost unbearable as they sat in that room.

And yet that is not the end of the story. We know that Jesus did not leave his followers alone in that room and he provided for me some lessons that gave me a peace and a hope. Our lord has told us he will not leave us nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Time and time again the Bible tells us to trust in the Lord. And so in response to my own fear I have chosen to turn to the Lord in prayer, asking for wisdom, peace and discernment. Another lesson I drew was that in the face of fear the Apostles gathered together. This drawing together helps to provide support and keep the fear from becoming overwhelming. For me, I’ve found some bloggers who share my fears for our nation and my faith and I’ve stopped reading other sources that I’ve found counter to my values and beliefs. The support and encouragement I get helps to sustain me as I wait knowing that we have a gracious God who answers prayer and that this is not the end of the story.