The Saddest Summer

“Even if my father and my mother leave me, the Lord will take me up.” — from Psalm 27

In 1908, when Jack was nine, his mother became very ill. The doctors found that she had cancer. She had an operation at home, and for a while she seemed to get better. But in the summer the illness came back. The house filled with nurses and doctors, and the boys were kept out of her room. They did not really understand what was happening.

Jack prayed. He had been taught that God answers prayer, and he asked God, with all his heart, to make his mother well. On 23 August 1908, his mother died. Then Jack prayed that she would come back to life. But she did not come back.

It was a terrible year for the whole family. Jack’s father lost his own father and his brother that same year. He was so full of sadness that he did not know how to comfort his boys. So Jack and Warnie held on to each other. From then on, they were closer than ever.

Less than a month later, their father sent both boys away to a boarding school in England. They crossed the sea on a night boat, and Jack never forgot how miserable that journey was. The school was a bad one, with a harsh headmaster, and Jack was very unhappy there.

But even there, something good happened. At that school Jack was taken to a church where the Christian faith was taught as if it really mattered. For a little while he began to pray seriously and to read his Bible.

When Jack grew up, he still remembered how it felt to lose his mother. Because of that, he was able to write kind, gentle letters to many people who were sad. God did not stop the sad thing from happening. But he was with Jack, and he used even that sadness for good. When we are sad, God is close to us, too.

Dear God, thank you that you are close to children who are sad. Please comfort anyone I know who has lost someone they love. Amen.