Touching Others Lives

By Amy Lytle Bielby

Every Saturday, when I was a teenager, I cleaned house for the most interesting, caring, and talented elderly woman. Her name was Mrs. Collins. She was an amazing artist. Every Saturday she would talk to me about painting and her life, growing up as a child, in Germany during the war.

One particular Saturday, when I went over to her house, I saw the most beautiful painting. It was an old man walking through what looked like to me a beautiful enchanted forest. There were different colored leaves on the ground. Almost like the beginning of fall. I saw so many different colors of green trees. It was amazing. The sun shined from a hole in the sky through the trees and glistened amongst perfectly round gray rocks. At the top perfectly blue pieces of the sky showed through. It was the most beautiful setting you could imagine.

While Mrs. Collins painted she had a sad look on her face. I asked if she was okay. She started crying. I didn’t know what to say. I asked if she would like to talk.

She replied, “Oh Amy, this is how I last remember my grandfather. When I was a little girl in Germany he would take me for walks in this forest to get away from the horrors of the war. He loved the forest and we would go there often. He was my best friend. He helped my through that awful war. A lot of my friends were killed and my grandfather was always there for me. Till one day my grandfather went for a walk by himself and never came back. We never found his body.” After hearing her story, I too burst out in tears. All I could say was I’m sorry. Shortly after that she told me her family moved to the United States. I heard that Mrs. Collins painting is now hanging in a museum for all to enjoy its beauty.

I will never for get how something so lovely to me had such a sad story and heartache behind it for someone else. We may be going though the most unbelievable hardships in our lives now, but God is not done. We may not ever understand why we go through some of the things we do. We must remember that God can be using each of us to touch so many people.

Amy Lytle Bielby writes from central Point, Oregon.