The incredible true story is told of a woman who was put up for adoption as a baby, and then spent years in later life trying to trace her father without success. Eventually she gave up and then moved house only to discover that her new next-door neighbour was, in fact, her half-sister! After all those years of searching it turned out that the answer she was looking for was nearer than she first supposed.
In a similar way we often we spend years trying to answer the longing of our hearts not to know who our earthly parents were, but what ultimate meaning and significance our lives might have. In the 4thcentury a famous Bishop, Augustine, wrote of his ‘restless heart’ which demanded answers; in the 19thcentury the author of War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy searched every field of science and philosophy looking for answers, and in the 20thcentury CS Lewis knew there was an aching void in his life that needed to be filled. In the end Augustine, Tolstoy and Lewis all found the answer much nearer than they first supposed – in the pages of the Bible and in the life of a living Jesus who invited them, and invites us all, to discover God as our Heavenly Father.