RUTH - RECONCILIATION

More than 2000 students were enrolled in kindergarten through high school at Concordia-Hong Kong when I served as principal. I did not know each student by name.

My first encounter with Ruth, a 10th grade student came in the emergency room of the Government Hospital. She was struggling for her life after slitting her wrists in a suicide attempt

Slowly I got the story. She had just endured 3 full days of being locked up without water or food in a dark closet. Her father had put her there to teach her a lesson.

On the previous Sunday afternoon after a youth activity at our church she and another youth (male) from the group walked the street together and had tea together in a tea restaurant. This behavior by his 16-year-old daughter angered and frightened her father. He wanted to make sure she would not make a similar mistake again.

In her despair Ruth decided death was better than life. She survived.

Thirty-five years later Ruth and I were leaving a Chinese restaurant in San Diego, California. She had given me her business card, which confirmed what I had previously been told. She was married, with children. She was an exceedingly successful businesswoman, managing a variety of companies - a millionaire many times over.

Yet there was something more impressive. As she (quite solicitously) held my arm to see her old principal safely to his car in a darkened parking lot, she very quietly said to me, “Principal Kieschnick, my father is still alive. We see each other often. We get along fine.” Then we parted.

I rejoice with her in the power of reconciliation and restored relationships between a frightened father and a hurt daughter and between a Heavenly Parent and all children everywhere.