Our "Trip To Holland"

Photo by Heather Rae Ackerman

Last week I mentioned sharing a personal "welcome to Holland" story. Since then I've pondered if ours really was such. Yes, we "landed in a different country," but we ended in a horrible place as well. Still God used our new path, leading us to people we'd not have known otherwise.

Our teen-aged daughter ran away from home and charged us with child abuse. Despite all our efforts to bring her home, we failed. Then people who believed her story moved her out of state ~ far away from us. For months we didn't know where she was. Social Services (now called child protective services) entered our lives, threatened to remove all our children, and judged us guilty without trial. (That's the way they do it.) Our only recourse was appeal in their court with their administrative judge.

We needed a lawyer, for we were now blind-folded, trodding an unplanned journey. We were shocked, devastated, fearful, distraught. I wept continually that year ... and I was crying the day we sat in front of our new lawyer who'd hopefully win our case. I stared at the floor, ashamed we even needed this man's help, while my husband explained all that had happened.

Well into the conversation about our dilemma and everything else in the world (this gentleman liked to talk) our Jewish lawyer asked, "In your religion what does conversion mean?" I glanced up wide-eyed. My mind flashed to the Biblical account of the apostle Paul in prison for a crime he hadn't committed. God shook the prison via earthquake, and the jailer asked the Paul 'What must I do to be saved?'" Paul told him, and the jailer asked Jesus to be his Savior. I bowed my head and prayed within as Brian explained "conversion" in our "religion."

Had it not been for the devastation we'd been through, we wouldn't have been in that place at that time ~ truly a "such a time as this" moment. Did we want these events that happened to us? No. Would we have trade them and missed this opportunity to share the good news of Jesus Christ? No. Paul was in the right place at the right time, and so were we.

Eventually we were cleared of all charges (more were added along the way), but during that journey we'd met others who'd know deep pain ~ folks whose paths we wouldn't have crossed had it not been for our "trip to Holland."