Johanna's hobby today -- My neighbor, Johanna, was a little girl in Bavaria when World War II ended. She was the youngest of her siblings, and the only one who didn’t complain when she went with her dad on errands. She simply enjoyed his company.
One day he said, “Let’s go north to visit my mother.” This was up near the Czech border. The few running trains in the aftermath of the war had no schedules. So they caught a train and took it as far as Augsburg. They spent the night in the station lit by a single dangling lightbulb. The few hotels that had not been bombed housed American soldiers.
The next day they caught another train to Bayern. They still had eighteen kilometers to reach his mother's house. A man with a cart pulled by two horses took them half way. They walked the last nine kilometers to learn Johanna’s grandmother had died the week before. It was a sad time.
However, they stayed for a few days with relatives on a farm, who piled them with hams, eggs, and bread to take home with them.
On the crowded return train trip, Johanna's dad gave his seat to an elderly woman who asked them where they would spend the night. He said they would sleep in the station as they had before.
More of Johanna's flowers
The woman said her place had not been bombed; it stood alone amid the rubble; and they could sleep in her apartment if they would give her some food. So Johanna and her dad slept in their own feather beds and left the woman with ham and bread and eggs. Everyone was happy.
Fast forward to Johanna and Kurt, newlyweds and adventurers. They came to America, worked hard, and here raised their family.
What is spiritual value of this story? That all things work together for good, to them that love God.
I don’t know if Johanna believes in God per se. Johanna believes life has been good to her. I know by how she lives her life that she believes in truth and forgiveness and generosity. These things describe my God. It looks to me like she does a good job of loving her neighbor as herself.
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