There’s nothing as heartwarming as the rescue of a young child. The news this week reported a long-awaited phone call between Mary Crabb of England and Harry Curtis of Ottawa. Harry’s father, Ernie, was a soldier in England in 1941. Out on patrol one day, he and two others heard the cry of a baby in the bushes beside a rural roadway near London. Apparently, the child had been abandoned right after birth. The soldiers quickly wrapped the baby girl in a shirt and sent her off to a hospital. The following year, she was adopted by a British family. Mary, now 77, grew up in a good home, eventually got married and had her own children and grandchildren. Back in Canada, Ernie always wondered about the baby he’d rescued and passed away without any answers; Mary always wondered what happened to her rescuers. With the help of an old photo, the pieces of the story were recently put together and the phone call soon put Mary together with Ernie’s son, Curtis. It was quite a conversation. Thanks to the quick thinking of a kind soldier in 1941, a child was given a normal life.

There’s a remarkably similar story in Ezekiel 16 about an abandoned child God rescued, brought back to good health, and raised to adulthood. It’s a figurative story of the kindness of God as he cared for the Israelites in captivity and brought them out into maturity as a nation. It’s worth reading, for it has repercussions for our own lives.

God takes hurt and struggling people who have been uncared for or abandoned and gives them new lives in Jesus Christ. What one of us hasn’t felt lost, mixed-up and hopeless? How many of us have felt the results of our own bad decisions, big mistakes and poor attitudes? It’s at that point that we can reach out to the Lord, for he’s waiting for us with a welcoming hand. He wants to forgive us and help us find our way. Eventually, like Mary Crabb, we can experience great lives.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heaven-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

– Tim Johnson