"GOD IS SO GOOD"


          
UNKOWN AUTHOR

         
A TRUE STORY


            John Powell, A Professor at Loyola University in Chicago writes
            about a student in his Theology of Faith class named Tommy:

            Some twelve years ago, I stood watching my university students file
            into the classroom for our first session in the Theology of Faith.
            That was the first day I first saw Tommy. My eyes and my mind both
            blinked.

            He was combing his long flaxen hair, which hung six inches below his
            shoulders. It was the first time I had ever seen a boy with hair
            that long, I guess it was just coming into fashion then. I know in
            my mind that it isn't what's on your head but what's in it that
            counts; but on that day I was unprepared and my emotions flipped. I
            immediately filed Tommy under "S" for strange . . . very strange.

            Tommy turned out to be the "atheist in residence" in my Theology of
            Faith course. He constantly objected to, smirked at, or whined about
            the possibility of an unconditionally loving Father-God. We lived
            with each other in relative peace for one semester, although I
            admit he was for me at times a serious pain in the back pew.

            When he came up at the end of the course to turn in his final exam,
            he asked in a slightly cynical tone: "Do you think I'll ever find
            God?" I decided instantly on a
            little shock therapy. "No!" I said very emphatically.

            "Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were
            pushing." I let him get five steps from the classroom door and then
            called out: "Tommy! I don't think you'll ever find him, but I am
            absolutely certain that he will find you!"

            He shrugged a little and left my class and my life. I felt slightly
            disappointed at the thought that he had missed my clever line: "He
            will find you!" At least I thought it was clever.

            Later I heard that Tommy had graduated and I was duly grateful. Then
            a sad report, I heard that Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could
            search him out, he came to see me. When he walked into my office,
            his body was very badly wasted, and the long hair had all
            fallen out as a result of chemotherapy. But his eyes were bright and
            his voice was firm, for the first time, I believe.

            "Tommy, I've thought about you so often. I hear you are sick!" I
            blurted out.

            "Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer in both lungs. It's a matter of
            weeks."

            "Can you talk about it, Tom?"

            "Sure, what would you like to know?"

            "What's it like to be only twenty-four and dying?"

            "Well, it could be worse."

            "Like what?"

            "Well, like being fifty and having no values or ideals, like being
            fifty and thinking that booze, seducing women, and making money are
            the real 'biggies' in life."

            I began to look through my mental file cabinet under "S" where I had
            filed Tommy as strange. (It seems as though everybody I try to
            reject by classification God sends back into my life to educate me.)

            "But what I really came to see you about," Tom said, "is something
            you said to me on the last day of class." (He remembered!) He
            continued, "I asked you if you thought I would ever find God and you
            said, 'No!' which surprised me. Then you said, 'But he will find
            you.' I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was
            hardly intense at that time. (My "clever" line. He thought about
            that a lot!) But when the doctors removed a
            lump from my groin and told me that it was malignant, then I got
            serious about locating God. And when the malignancy spread into my
            vital organs, I really began banging bloody fists against the bronze
            doors of heaven. But God did not come out. In fact, nothing
            happened.

            Did you ever try anything for a long time with great effort and with
            no success? You get
            psychologically glutted, fed up with trying. And then you quit.
            Well, one day I woke up, and instead of throwing a few more futile
            appeals over that high brick wall to a God who
            may be or may not be there, I just quit. I decided that I didn't
            really care ...about God, about an afterlife, or anything like
            that." "I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more
            profitable. I thought about you and your class and I remembered
            something else you had said: 'The essential sadness is to go through
            life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to go
            through life and leave this world without ever
            telling those you loved that you had loved them.'

            "So I began with the hardest one: my Dad. He was reading the
            newspaper when I approached him." "Dad?".
            "Yes, what?" he asked without lowering the newspaper.
            "Dad, I would like to talk with you."
            "Well, talk."
            "I mean. .. . It's really important."
            The newspaper came down three slow inches.
            "What is it?"
            "Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that."

            Tom smiled at me and said with obvious satisfaction, as though he
            felt a warm and secret joy flowing inside of him:
            "The newspaper fluttered to the floor. Then my father did two things
            I could never remember him ever doing before.
            He cried and he hugged me. And we talked all night, even though he
            had to go to work the next morning.
            It felt so good to be close to my father, to see his tears, to feel
            his hug, to hear him say that he loved me."

            "It was easier with my mother and little brother. They cried with
            me, too, and we hugged each other, and started saying real nice
            things to each other. We shared the things we had been keeping
            secret for so many years.
            I was only sorry about one thing: that I had waited so long. Here I
            was just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been
            close to."

            "Then, one day I turned around and God was there. He didn't come to
            me when I pleaded with him. I guess I was like an animal trainer
            holding out a hoop, 'C'mon, jump through.'
            'C'mon, I'll give you three days . . .three weeks.'
            Apparently God does things in his own way and at his own hour. "But
            the important thing is that he was there. He found me. You were
            right. He found me even after I stopped looking for him."

            "Tommy," I practically gasped, "I think you are saying something
            very important and much more universal than you realize. To me, at
            least, you are saying that the surest way to find God is not to make
            him a private possession, a problem solver, or an instant
            consolation in time of need, but rather by opening to love. You
            know, the Apostle John said that. He said God is love, and anyone
            who lives in love is living with God and God
            is living in him.' Tom, could I ask you a favor? You know, when I
            had you in class you were a real pain. But (laughingly) you can make
            it all up to me now. Would you come
            into my present Theology of Faith course and tell them what you have
            just told me? If I told them the same thing it wouldn't be half as
            effective as if you were to tell them."

            "Oooh . . . I was ready for you, but I don't know if I'm ready for
            your class."

            "Tom, think about it. If and when you are ready give me a call."

            In a few days Tommy called, said he was ready for the class, that he
            wanted to do that for God and for me.
            So we scheduled a date. However, he never made it. He had another
            appointment, far more important than the one with me and my class.
            Of course, his life was not really
            ended by his death, only changed. He made the great step from faith
            into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of man
            has ever seen or the ear of man has ever heard or the mind of man
            has ever imagined. Before he died, we talked one last time.

            "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.

            "I know, Tom."

            "Will you tell them for me? Will you .. . . tell the whole world for
            me?"

            "I will, Tom. I'll tell them. I'll do my best."

            So, to all of you who have been kind enough to hear this simple
            statement about love, thank you for listening.
            And to you, Tommy, somewhere in the sunlit, verdant hills of heaven:
            "I told them, Tommy . . . as best I could."


            It is a true story and is not enhanced for
            publicity purposes.
MY OTHER SITES
"THE JESUS STOP"
"SITES TO SURF"
"FRIENDS POETRY PLACE"
JANE'S QUILTING