Sublime Moments

I have often thought that our lives on earth are full of sublime moments, if we only knew to see them.

I was 19 years old and in my last year of undergraduate education at Calvin College. I was supporting myself while I studied and worked at a hospital for children and young people who needed long-term care and therapy. The children and young people who were patients had physical deformities of some kind. Some of them had little flippers instead of arms and legs as results of the mother’s having been told to take the drug, Thalidomide, during pregnancy. Others were quadriplegics or paraplegics.

Mathilda was four years old and she had burns all over her body except for the center of her hands, which she had clenched tightly during the fire. She could not stand up straight because the burns had caused webbing in her skin. The doctors said she would likely not live very long because her immune system did not allow her to fight normal childhood illnesses.

Mathilda was one of the naughtiest children I have ever known. No family or friends ever came to see her. She was very mean to the other children but when we would try to make her take a time out, or restrain her in any way she would cry, “My burns, you’re hurting my burns.” Her screams could be heard all up and down the halls.

A Methodist church had set up a very nice Sunday school for children of different ages. Mathilda begged to be allowed to go to the Sunday school for four-year-olds but the very first time I brought her there she as returned within ten minutes and the teacher said that she must not come again. The following Sunday Mathilda begged and begged to be allowed to go to Sunday school and after hearing her promise to be perfect, I brought her again. Again she was returned shortly after it started with the teacher saying very firmly that Mathilda was never to come to Sunday school again.

I was a nurse’s aide in that hospital and often had night duty alone. My only task was to comfort the children if they wakened. At about two o’clock in the morning I would be sitting alone in the nurses station. All of a sudden I would hear a hoarse voice say,”Goria”. And there would stand Mathilda in her long white nighty. She was awake because her burned body hurt so much. So we would get the cocoa butter and I would carefully smooth it all over her. Then, we would pull a little rocking chair close to my desk and make a tent out of a white sheet to keep her warm while the cocoa butter soaked in. While we sat and talked, because her burns hurt her too much for me to hold her. Mathilda would ask me the most remarkable questions.

I can still hear that hoarse voice today, speaking with those damaged vocal cords, “Goria, where do you fink is God?” “If dere was an angel in here where would the angel be?” “Is a bunny wabbit sort of like an angel...a white one, I mean?” “Goria, do you fink maybe God hates me?” “Was I being bad do you fink?” “Goria, God could make my wocking chair talk if he wants to.” “Why do you fink he doesn’t want to?” And she wanted to hear story after story, often from the Bible, but sometimes stories I made up for her. She would ask for a story about Princess Mathilda and I would tell her about the wonderful princess who was so kind and good that everyone loved her, hoping that some of it would rub off.

One night, after her cocoa butter had been smeared over her, Mathilda said to me, “Goria, tell me about the beautiful Mathilda girl.” I didn’t know what she meant so I asked. She said, “You know, once upon a time dere was a beautiful girl named Mathilda.” How could I make up such a story for her with her burned face and body and feet and hands?

So after a while I said, “Once upon a time Mathilda was asleep and she slept for a very, very long time. And then suddenly a voice said, ‘Wake up now, Mathilda, because you are mine.’ And Mathilda woke up and the big voice said to an angel standing nearby, “Bring me the most beautiful white dress you can find and put it on Mathilda because she is mine and I have made her beautiful.’ And the angel brought the beautiful white dress and put it on Mathilda. Then the voice said, ‘Bring golden slippers and put them on her feet because I know Mathilda’s name and she is mine.’ And the angel did what she was told. And then the voice said, ‘Mathilda, you will always be with me and you will always be beautiful because I have made you that way and you are mine.’”

When the story was finished, Mathilda looked at me with big round eyes. Then she whispered, “Don’t say the name, Goria.” I said, “What name?” “The name of the big voice. Don’t say that name.” And then she said, “I want to go to bed now. You don’t come with me.” And just a couple of minutes later I peeked at her and she was curled up like a little white ball in her bed, with her eyes tightly shut and her hands folded. And all of a sudden she whispered, without opening her eyes, “He knows my name. The Big Voice knows my name!”

I realize that I often spend time looking and waiting for sublime moments. I believe that sublime moments are all around us to encourage us and to help us move forward. God had taken my weak stories and turned them into a sublime moment for me as well as for Mathilda. And God can and will also take the weaknesses and mistakes in Christian schools around the world and turn the work of his faithful people into glory.