The Lasting Influence of a Godly Pilgrim

My Life and the Legacy of Margaret Mohr

Note: This is an adapted essay from a course I took this past summer on the subject of pilgrimages. Used with permission.

We do not always have the power to choose and control our pilgrimage in this life, but Christians are unified in their desire to travel as Christian pilgrims. Christians understand that God has sovereign control over our plans, and as the Proverbs explain, “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps” (Prov. 16:9). The one who has surrendered their life to God and His Lordship acknowledges God in all things, remembering that God “will make straight your paths” (Prov. 3:6). When I received Christ as my Savior as a child, although it came from a simple act of faith given to me by God, the consequences are eternal. As the psalmist wrote, “For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life” (Ps. 56:13). I have no fear in this life’s journey because God is with me. The psalmist describes my experience when he writes, “You hem me in behind and before; You have laid Your hand upon me” (Ps. 139:5). The key question for each of us is whether we are on a journey with or without God. There is only one way of salvation, and God has given mankind all we need to know to cast ourselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation. He has given us Scripture as His instruction, and we confess, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105). For the Christian, the pilgrimage in this world gives us the opportunity to know as much of God and His attributes as we can through the ups and downs of life, until our faith becomes sight and we are resurrected to be in His presence (2 Cor. 5:6-8).

On this earth, the Christian walks their pilgrimage by faith, not by sight (2 Cor. 5:7). When God calls us and we respond in faith, we experience a miracle where our sinful hearts of stone are softened such that we desire a life with Him (Ezekiel 36:26). God provided me a blessing early in my life by ordaining that I begin my life in a godly, joyful home. My rebirth was not guaranteed because my parents are Christians, but in this beautiful atmosphere of love for God, I was introduced early to the Christian life that honors God. My physical hindrances and mental ability did not keep me from understanding my sinfulness and seeking forgiveness in order to submit to God as Lord of my life. God made my young heart open to Him, and I look back with gratitude because He knew what the future would be for me and for my parents. God knew we would need Him in order to walk the unknown road of autism in front of us. Brilliant doctors and therapists are doing their best, but they are confounded by autism—how it is triggered and whether it can be healed or prevented. Hours of daily therapies filled my schedule until I reached middle school. We were trying all available earthly methods to help me speak and progress in learning. We thank God for His provision of funding through insurance, and we thank Him for the patient help of teachers and therapists. At various points in my life, I have been hooked up to audio machines for hearing level testing, EEG machines that revealed petit mal seizures, and had surgery to remove my gallbladder. All of this is new territory for us to experience and understand, but not too hard for God to bring us through. We have prayed and will continue to pray for healing. We are certain from Scripture that God can and does heal. We pray for His will to be done, and to date He has not chosen to take this cup from me. In the meantime, I rejoice that He has healed me spiritually, and this is far grander than physical healing because it is an everlasting healing of my soul with God’s promise of a perfect body one day.

My pilgrimage continues to be full of unknowns, yet no matter where God takes me, I am thankful for the opportunities my pilgrimage has brought me. What encourages my heart is to look back over the more than twenty years of my spiritual journey and attest to the fact that God has never disappointed me, and He has never left me stranded. He is Lord over everything in my life, and as I recall His blessings, I marvel at how He has used autism in my life to bring me in direct contact and association with the special needs community. At each appointment, activity or time in the waiting room, I have the opportunity to show my experience of God’s peace and share God’s joy in living with those suffering in this arena. When my kindergarten teacher was heading to a court case, she asked me to pray with her because she witnessed me praying aloud, with only a few words that I could speak, faithfully each day before I would eat. I was only seven years old, but she knew I would pray and hoped God would hear my prayer for her. By the time I graduated from my public high school, I was typing to communicate and was able to share my thoughts about life and God with my classmates and teachers. Usually, a pastor would be chosen as speaker for a school Baccalaureate, but because it was known through my writing that I love God my high school administration asked if I would be the speaker. There was no hesitation on my part, because God was giving me the opportunity to thank Him publicly in front of an audience of one thousand students and their parents. How unlikely is it that a student would be chosen as a class representative—along with two students who would go on to attend Stanford University—whose voice can only be heard through a computer? However, as in all cases, God has His own designs and I can trust Him to use me for His purposes.

It is easy to assume that those who have special needs are incapable. Although we are hindered from being able to do a great many things, we are people full of thoughts and emotions that an all-powerful, omniscient God can and does use. Like everyone else, we long to have meaningful, honest dealings with people. I am a good listener and am fervent in prayer, and people might be more open to hear from a person in my situation who depends on God and believes every word of Scripture. It is impossible to listen to a non-verbal voice; but God, in His providential timing, allowed me to live in the era of technological innovation that has produced the iPad. All day long, people who can speak verbally still read and write tweets, emails, blogs, etc. to receive and share their news and thoughts. This is no accident. This is God’s provision for me to have a mode to speak to others in order to share the Gospel and what God is teaching me. Last summer, I started this blog with my brother’s help. This is another means God has provided to give me access to communication with the broader world and other Christians. I pray I will use it to honor Him and bless others. The pilgrimage I am on is full of medical issues and appointments, but I see this natural means as God’s way to connect me with others. The purpose of pilgrimage is to glorify God, and I am grateful my special needs do not hinder my ability to do this or to enjoy God fully.

We choose to trust God in this journey as a family. My parents have no medical background, and neither autism nor apraxia are identified in our family tree. Their acceptance and trust in God in spite of this hardship has been a wonderful influence on my trust in God even as I trust them to continually seek God’s wisdom. Although autism is new to our family, hardship is not, and hardship is not uncommon to the Christian experience; in fact, it is supposed to be expected (Jn. 16:33). Even as I examine my own spiritual pilgrimage, I find comfort and strength when I walk through the valleys of difficulty and consider my own family’s perseverance and the examples I find in the lives of other saints in the family of God. The reason I share this is because my life has been so influenced by the legacy of Margaret Mohr, my great-grandmother.

As I look back in my family history, I can see from my vantage point that God has given a clear view of His work in our family to cause spiritual growth to flourish across generations. Although I have not met her personally, my maternal great-grandmother, Margaret Mohr, has blessed me indirectly as the first Christian convert in her family. In 1929, she and her husband lived in a section of Poland occupied by the Germans called Galicia. When a new pastor joined the farming community, over twelve hundred congregants from the six villages, though they were religious, heard the Gospel preached for the first time. Margaret was the first woman there to commit her life to Christ and begin her Christian pilgrimage. Her newfound joy and zeal for God was suspicious to her family at first. Her husband warned her that if she went back to another meeting, she would find the house door locked. She did go, and she did have to sleep in the barn that evening. From that point of conversion, Margaret was known for her beautiful smile that radiated the glory of the Holy Spirit filling her life. Her husband and brother-in-law came to Christ not too long thereafter. In September of 1939, their faith was tested when the German government instructed them to leave their farm within a few hours, along with their three children and in-laws, and pack up as much as they could carry before being stuffed in the cattle car of a train headed to Warthegau, a Polish territory just annexed by the Nazi regime in 1938. They were now refugees on their pilgrim way, trusting completely in God’s provision in uncharted territory, knowing they most likely would never return. Once they arrived at the refugee camp in Warthegau they were assigned a farm house. The government provided them with a house and farmland that included cows, pigs, and birds. They had fruit and vegetable gardens and beehives from which my great-grandpa was able to produce honey. My Oma was four years old when they arrived, and they stayed there for the next six years.

In January 1945, their years of plenty would end. Hitler ordered all German families living in the Polish area where my family lived to cross the Oder River into Berlin. The Russians were advancing into the territory, and they had to pack up everything they could manage in two hours. My Oma was nearly 10 years old, and she remembers the bitter cold as they traveled by foot and buggy. This time, they had a baby on the journey: Oma’s five-month-old sister. They were a day’s journey short of making it over the Oder River. Each night they chose to stop in a home on their route to have warm shelter for the family to sleep in and to change and nurse the baby. This time the unknown was intensified by the additional fear of those who traveled alongside them and of those in whose homes they stayed. They heard many people were committing suicide rather than be taken advantage of or shot by the Russian soldiers. On the day the Russians caught them, my grandfather found that the woman of the house had taken her life. My Oma and her family were taken captive by the Russians and lived in an area they referred to as the “Russian Zone” for two years. This part of their pilgrimage was both volatile and dangerous, as they were required to serve the drunk Russian soldiers. My great-grandfather was taken away from his family and put into forced labor under the Russians. During this time, Margaret had sole care of the children and was forced to work in the Russian kitchen where she cooked for the soldiers. When the stories are recounted for us, it is not with terror or bitterness. God demonstrated His power to the family by giving Margaret favor with the enemy. They gave her their leftover food, which allowed her to feed her children. When she milked the cows and made the butter, she was allowed to give some to her children. This was a blessing from God to augment the ivy leaves she cooked to create a spinach for them. Even in the dark hours of her pilgrimage, God provided for Margaret and her children even as He has provided for His children throughout history.

My Oma was old enough to understand that the Russian soldiers who entered their barracks drunk at night were abusing the German women. God provided protection for Margaret in the form of her baby’s cry, which deterred the soldiers from hurting her. Another poignant memory during this captivity was the day a drunk Russian soldier was agitated by Margaret’s smile. He asked her why a captive would be happy. She proclaimed boldly that she was a child of God, and that God was with her. The soldier demanded she dig her own grave as he held a gun to her. Margaret said that although she knew she was going to heaven when she died, she did want to live to take care of her family. My Oma was at her side and cried out over and over “My Mama” in Russian. Like God closed the mouths of the lions, He caused the Russian soldier to shoot the nearby German Shepherd instead, and he ordered Margaret to bury it in the grave she had just dug. God spared her life, and to this day, Margaret’s and Oma’s courage and trust in God serve as a witness that God can and does provide for His children.

Margaret’s faith was tested again as she continued to care for not only her own four children, but also for four other children whose mother had died from Typhoid fever. Margaret, against all caution because of how deadly and contagious the disease is, served this woman in the camp until she died. Margaret did not get sick, but her children would later admit that it was challenging to accept how graciously their mother loved and shared their food with these orphans. They were God’s children, and she could do no less. They lived two years in these conditions under the Russians. Change came again at the end of 1946 when they were released. Oma remembers watching her mom fight to make sure the other four children would be allowed to leave with them. The Polish, now in charge, were not going to let that happen. Margaret said that if they were not released, she and her family would stay as well. She did not know where they were being taken, but she could not leave those children behind. Eventually, the Polish leaders honored her request and allowed the other children to join her. Since they could not see out of the train’s cattle car, they thought they were headed to Siberia. Their endpoint was not Siberia, but a refugee camp in West Germany. They waited for seven weeks until housing was found for them. Margaret enlisted the help of the Red Cross to help find any relatives of her four “adopted” children. God, in His providence, allowed them to be reunited with their grandparents and later their father, who was released from a Russian concentration camp. Those children never forgot Margaret and sent her gifts and cards for the rest of her life, and they even attended her funeral. They attested to the fact that God blessed them and saved them through the love and care of Margaret. Though she already had a lot to think about and deal with to ensure her own safety and that of her children, like the Good Samaritan commended by her Lord, Margaret cared for the needy she came across in her difficult pilgrimage—a trait she would carry for the rest of her life.

Margaret served God with unconditional, selfless love to her family, the Body of Christ, and the strangers she encountered. Her husband became permanently ill after the war, and Margaret, with no bitterness or discouragement, worked and served the Lord gladly. It would not be until 1960 that they would have enough money to buy a house again with the help of their son. Money was never the prize, and yet from her hard work and thrift, there was always food on the table and guests were always welcomed in their home. My mom loved seeing Margaret in action when she would visit her in Germany during summer vacations. Many of the relatives have told my brother and me that she is like Margaret in many ways. I cannot think of a higher compliment. Both my mom and Oma have Margaret’s big smile and joy serving the Lord. Indeed, God impacts us through the faithful lives of those who have gone before us and walk this journey with us now.

Reflecting back on my pilgrimage and the influence of Margaret’s pilgrimage on my life, I see God’s hand in the details of our lives. This gives me comfort and confidence to continue walking faithfully in obedience to God, knowing that He is sovereign over all and trustworthy. Being a pilgrim is not enough; it matters for eternity whether or not you are a Christian pilgrim,  trusting in God for everything you encounter on the way. The road is not smooth, and I cannot expect it to be easy, but I am grateful for those who have been faithful pilgrims in their journey to show that it is possible, and I am grateful for those who are now walking with me on the path of life and continually encourage me. These examples of provision help me to walk by faith even when difficult questions remain unanswered. Margaret’s life exuded the marks of true Christian love even when some others might choose bitterness or anger. Her actions backed up the Gospel that saved her. She was an example of living Paul’s exhortation, “Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality” (Rom. 12:11-13). These goals would otherwise be impossible if not for God saving us and being Lord of our life. Margaret did not just endure the journey. She was a steadfast pilgrim who never grew weary in doing good because her hope looked beyond this life to eternal life in the presence of God, and she contributed what little she had when any opportunity presented itself in a way characteristic of a Christian pilgrim who stores up treasure in heaven.

Margaret died alone on the sidewalk a few blocks from her home. She had not felt well that day, but that afternoon was the women’s prayer meeting for the church missionaries, and she did not want to miss it. On the way, she suffered a massive heart attack and remained collapsed on a fence until strangers stopped to help and drive her to the hospital. It is a sorrow that her family was unable to be by her side in this moment of need. And yet, God was with her and provided strangers to help in the final moments of her pilgrimage, just as she had been generous to strangers throughout her life. I thank God that even in her death she was being faithful to Him, desiring to pray with a group of women for missionaries. We cannot know when or how we will die. I want to be found faithful to God in everything so that others might look to my example in their desire to honor God. This is not because I think myself important, but because pilgrims need to look to other pilgrims for strength and comfort on their journey, even as I have looked to Margaret and others. Margaret had many near-death experiences, but God chose to take her after 69 years. I have the blessing of being influenced by all of the family that she led to the Lord and influenced to live a godly lifestyle. I thank God for the blessing of giving me the faith to see this example, learn from it, and desire to practice what I have learned as I continue on my journey as a Christian pilgrim.