If God Were Real [antikvár]

Introduction SHE WAS FOUR years old, the little girl I was going to see on a cold December night. I felt the bite of the Texas wind as I got out of the car in front of a run-down little house. I was dressed in the uniform of our city's police department, where I served as chaplain. In my hands I carried a stuffed animal, a Christmas present for a child I had never met. It seemed almost insulting to think this small gift could mean anything to this little one who had suffered so much. Our officers had found her at the bottom of a gully—raped, thrown out like trash, and left to die. She was out of the hospital now and staying with her grandmother. As chaplain and as a pastor of a church in the city, I felt I should pay her a visit. But I wondered, as I rang the doorbell, if I would only be making matters worse. How would this victimized little girl react to a strange man coming to see her? Was she so traumatized that she would hide in terror? Would she scream when I entered the house? I knew those were possibilities. But nothing could have prepared me for her reaction. Her grandmother answered the door and thanked me for coming as she let me in. Before I could say a word, a precious child who had never seen me before came running across the room and jumped into my arms. She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck and clung to me. Stunned, I simply held her for a long time. Eventually she let me show her the present I had brought for I'^V