Monthly Devotion: Change

For 11 years a man named Merhan Karimi Nasseri was a man without a country. His story was forever immortalized in the 2004 film “The Terminal” with Tom Hanks depicting Nasseri. For 11 years Nasseri lived in a Paris airport. He had no passport. He had no citizenship. He had no papers that enabled him to leave the airport of fly to another country.

He had been expelled from his native Iran, sent away from Paris, denied entry into England and sent back to Paris. When he returned to Paris in 1988, airport authorities allowed him to live in Terminal 1, and there he stayed for 11 years, writing in a diary, living off handouts from airport employees, cleaning up in the airport bathroom.

In September 1999, the situation reversed. French authorities presented Nasseri with an international travel card and a French residency permit. Suddenly, he was free to go anywhere he wanted. But when airport officials handed him his walking papers, to everyone’s surprise, he simply smiled, tucked the documents in his folder, and resumed writing in his diary. They realized he was afraid to leave the bench and table that had been his home for 11 years. As the days passed and Nasseri refused to leave, officials said they would not throw him out of the airport, but they would have to gently and patiently coax him to find a new home.

Do we ever find ourselves in a situation like this man in the Paris airport? We may be comfortable in our current life and not eager to shake things up. Change can be difficult.

As we approach the end of another academic year, change will likely be a big part of your lives in the coming weeks. For some, it may just mean and fining a summer job and hanging out with friends. For others, it may mean graduation and moving on to high school or college.

Whatever is happening in our lives, we can take comfort in knowing that our God is with us during the unsettling times in our lives. Not only is he with us, but we know that he is the one thing in our lives that never changes. His love and care for us will always be there!

Dear Father in heaven, thank you for being the constant in our lives. As we go through times of change, give us comfort in knowing that you are always with us. In your name we pray, Amen.

Update: Nasseri’s stay at the Paris Airport ended in July 2006 when he was temporarily hospitalized. He was then lodged in a hotel and looked after by the French Red Cross.