For hours, the old man studies the face in the mirror. It is his face, but it is a startling revelation.
~~~~~ Chicago Tribune, 9-6-2000
It is the story of Andras Toma, or Tamas as he came to be called. He was the last prisoner of WW2 to have been repatriated. Drafted into the Hungarian army, he was captured by the Russians in 1944 when he was just 19. He spoke only Hungarian, which his Russian captors thought was mere gibberish. He was placed in a POW camp, and when that camp was closed, he was transferred to a psych hospital, and was forgotten. For 53 years. Then a doctor came along who spoke Hungarian, and the "mystery" was solved. The doctor helped Andras recover his memory, and he was welcomed back to Budapest as a war hero of sorts, where he remained until his death a few years later.
Imagine looking into a mirror, seeing your own face, but not recognizing it. A half-century of not knowing exactly who you are, or what you look like. Imagine looking at your own face in a mirror, and not recognizing it. Or for some of us, at times, not wanting to. We've begun to make our peace with a wrinkle here and there, or a little grey in what's left of our hair, but what about the stuff the mirror doesn't show? The stuff we see only with the eyes of our hearts. The mirror shows us the effects of time on us, but not the effects we've had on others. Let us live our lives in such a way that the guy or gal in that mirror isn't ashamed to be seen with us.
Blessings and Peace to the TG family,
NT
In memory of Allen Jones, who got himself a new mirror.
James 1:22-25: A man who hears the word but doesn't do what it says is like a man who sees his face in a mirror then walks away and forgets what he looks like.
n.rivals.com
