I've been thinking of a story from the Old Testament: Moses stood all day and all night with outstretched arms, praying to God for victory. And whenever he let down his arms, the enemy prevailed over the children of Israel. Are there still people today who never weary of directing all their thinking and all their energy, single-heartedly, to one cause?

When I was able to get home it first hit me that you had left and I couldn't do anything about it. Every day before that an evening with you was waiting for me after school, now no more, strange feeling. I had grown too accustomed to your warmth. That is also a danger. At home I looked at the notebooks that you had bought and I got the stupidest surge of hope that I'd find something of you, something especially for meant for me. I would so much like to have something of you that I could always keep by me, that nobody else would notice.

Many people think of our times as being the last before the end of the world. The evidence of horror all around us makes this seem possible. But isn't that an idea of only minor importance? Doesn't every human being, no matter which era he lives in, always have to reckon with being accountable to God at any moment? Can I know whether I'll be alive tomorrow morning? A bomb could destroy all of us tonight. And then my guilt would not be one bit less than if I perished together with the arth and the stars.

Who would have thought it possible that a tiny flower could preoccupy a person so completely that there simply wasn't room for any other thought.

It was a sunny day, I was carrying a child in a white dress to be christened. The path to the church led up a steep slope, but I held the child in my arms firmly and without faltering. Then suddenly my footing gave way ... I had enough time to put the child down before plunging into the abyss. The child is our idea. In spite of all obstacles it will prevail.

How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause. Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

I shall cling to the rope God has thrown me in Jesus Christ, even if my numb hands can no longer feel it.