Читать книгу Hope’s Daughters - R. Wayne Willis - Страница 35

I cannot forget the first time I saw the face of William Niehous. He was on the evening network news, having stumbling out of a Venezuelan jungle, looking like warmed-over death. His hair fell down below his shoulders and he had a Rip Van Winkle beard.

More than three years earlier terrorists had kidnapped him, ending the comfortable lifestyle he had enjoyed with his family as the executive of a glass company. The terrorists ripped him from his wife and three kids and held him for millions of dollars ransom. In those three years, living with snakes and mud and the likelihood of execution, Niehous saw not one human face. His captors kept him blindfolded the entire time. Whenever they did remove his blindfold, they were all wearing masks.

One day, in a crude hut, listening to the plaintive cry of a jungle bird, he glanced down and noticed an ant on the floor. It had found a crumb from Niehous’s last meal and was carrying it away. He couldn’t get out of his mind the enormous weight the insect could carry compared to its size. The ant made him think that God probably had built tremendous resources into all creatures, including himself.21

One of the most common comments I have heard from people like William Niehous, whose stable and comfortable lives got suddenly blown apart by an accident or illness, is: “I never would have believed, before it happened, that I could survive a body blow like that.”

Ants can move a rubber tree plant. One ant can carry a crumb several times its weight. We, like the ant, have powers within us that we may not know until we are put to the test.