On The Train

Toward the end of World War II, my father was drafted into the German army and sent to the western front, leaving my mother alone to care for our family.
Though I was only three years old, I can still remember this time of fear and hunger.
We lived in remember this time of fear and hunger.
We lived in Czechoslovakia, and with every passing day, the war came nearer and the danger grew greater.

Finally, during the cold winter of 1944, my mother decided to flee to Germany, where her parents were living.
She bundled us up and somehow managed to get us on one of the last refugee trains heading west.
Traveling during that time was dangerous.
Everywhere we went, the sound of explosions, the stressed faces, and ever-present hunger reminded us that we were in a war zone.

Along the way the train stopped occasionally to get supplies.
One night during one of these stops, my mother hurried out of the train to search for some food for her four children.
When she returned, to her great horror, the train and her children were gone!

She was weighed down with worry; desperate prayers filled her heart.
She frantically searched the large and dark train station, urgently crisscrossing the numerous tracks while hoping against hope that the train had not already departed.

Perhaps I will never know all that went through my mother's heart and mind on that black night as she searched through a grim railroad station for her lost children.
That she was terrified, I have no doubt.
I am certain it crossed her mind that if she did not find this train, she might never see her children again.
I know with certainty: her faith overcame her fear, and her hope overcame her despair.
She was not a woman who would sit and bemoan tragedy.
She moved.
She put her faith and hope into action.

And so she ran from track to track and from train to train until she final found our train.
It had been moved to a remote area of the station.
There, at last, she found her children again.

-Dieter F. Uchtdorf -The Infinite Power of Hope -October 2008 General Conference

Until you next read these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi