Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [92]
“If it’s so bad, why don’t you stay and make it better? We desperately need people like you in the Amish church. You are a born leader. You could tremendously influence the culture and the church in your lifetime.”
And his perspective always left me silent, groping for a comeback. I came back a time or two. “You don’t understand, don’t realize the bad things I’ve done. You don’t know where I’ve been. And besides, I don’t know if I even believe in God. What use can the Amish possibly have for a man like me?”
Even those words, anathema to any ordinary Amish man, did not shock him.
And in time, I told him who I was. Of how I was so lost and so afraid. Of how I was approaching the end here in this area. Of the mad bishop of Ligonier and how I couldn’t take it anymore. I told him of my past, sparing no details. What I’d done, how I’d left home again and again. The people I had hurt, so senselessly and so deeply. I told him of Sarah and of all the guilt associated with that terrible experience. Haltingly, brokenly, I let the words flow from me. I left out nothing. Spared no details.
“You have done nothing that cannot be forgiven,” he answered after I finished. “Nothing. I don’t care what you’ve done. There is a place where you can let it all go, let it rest, and return to life. Trust me on this.”
And so it went, back and forth, for weeks. We talked of many other things too. My irritation at the Amish in general, my disconnection with the culture, and of his own journey to where he was. It seemed strange, and I told him so. We were traveling in opposite directions. Born of English blood, he was more Amish than the Amish. And I, born of the purest Amish bloodlines, was heading away, out into the world from which he had come. And yet somehow, we had met on our journeys and connected so strongly. Strange, indeed.
I absorbed all the things he said about forgiveness and about new life. And gradually, his words began to penetrate my mind. He explained that there was no human penance for my sins. No way I could ever atone for all the things I had done. But, Sam reminded me again and again, there was someone else who could atone. Who could wipe the past away and give new life. Heal all the wounds—my own and those I had inflicted on so many others through the years. It seemed impossible that it could be true. But I listened, and I desperately wanted to believe him.
He never pressured me. Never told me to “just decide to do what’s right.” Or “to just straighten up and settle down.” I guess that’s because he wasn’t raised Amish. He didn’t buy into those trite, simplistic lines. He was simply my friend. Quietly there, just there, regardless of who I was or what I had done.
And gradually, gently, the man calmed my spirit and gave me hope. He led me to realize that my rough and rowdy past could be forgiven. That all the pain and all the wounds could be healed. That there was real hope and a new life for me, should I choose to take it. Accept it. Live it.
Gradually, too, the struggles and doubts that had haunted me since my early teens began to fade. I could do this. I could change. I could choose to believe. I thought it through for a long time. Days. Then weeks. It could be true. It must be true.
And then one day, the moment arrived. I would do it. See what happened. I’m not sure what motivated me. Exhaustion, I guess. That, and a tiny seed of faith that had somehow sprouted from somewhere. That day, that afternoon, I spoke to God again. Informally again. Not in despair this time, but as a man who dared to hope. A man who wanted to do what was right. From his heart.
My first desperate prayer, a few months back, had been heard and answered.
By quietly showing me Christ’s love, my friend had led me to the Source of that love. For the first time, I truly grasped that Christ had died for me—suffered, bled, and died—and that I could be his through faith. I was amazed at how simple it really was. Why had it always seemed so hard, so impossible