It was December 1958. The tragic parochial school fire in Chicago was being reported on the evening news. One of the teachers was being interviewed. She told of the panic, the suffocating heat, the smoke that blacked out the room in daylight, and of herding the children out the window and down the ladders, assisted by the firemen.
Struggling for control, the sister described how she climbed through the window and down the ladder, across the roof, then down another ladder to the ground. “I looked up at the windows billowing black smoke. It was then,” she said simply, tears streaming down her face, “that I saw the one I missed.”
Amid the pressures of today, the increasing global turmoil—the smoke that blackens the room in daylight—we who are Christians piust be alert. Is there a letter we need to write? Some simple deed of kindness we should do? An encouraging word to give to someone who is desperate to hear? Time we ought to take to listen? Is there someone we should invite for a meal or a cup of tea?
We need concern. We need compassion. This is not the same as sharing the gospel. Opportunities like these simply allow us to show genuine love, to earn the right to be heard.
God forbid that the time should ever come when we will have to look back and see “the one we missed.”
