More From Susan Cosper

Riding the metro subway was not always as warm and fulfilling as described in the devotional I wrote over a year ago. There were plenty of days when the police were called, and they would board and search the cars while we sat and waited. On one such a morning, the car I usually sat in was full, so I went to the next car. There were plenty of empty seats, so I sat in one close to the front. As soon as the train got underway, an older woman who was sitting in the first seat facing the rear of the train began slowly walking up and down the aisle. 

I saw her, but I did not think anything of it and pulled out my Bible and began reading as I normally did. She paused at my seat, but after glancing at the Bible, she walked past and returned to her seat. I don’t know what she was doing, but at the next stop the police boarded the train. By the time they came through the car I was in, she was gone.

As the police hurried down the aisle, the driver of the train spoke over the intercom, “What about her?” A police officer stopped by my seat, and I froze. Surely there isn’t anything wrong with reading a Bible on public transit, I thought. The police officer, dressed in the black uniform of the city, looked down at the Bible in my lap and a slight smile crossed her face. “It’s a book,” she said. “A what?” She repeated, “A book,” and then hurried into the next car. Everyone except for the older woman still seemed to be in the train car, and she and I were the only two older women in our car, so it occurred to me that the person they were looking for may have been the other woman.

Despite days like those when I was reminded of just how dangerous riding the train could be, each day as I waited on the platform for the train to arrive, I would watch the early morning sun rise over the housetops and shine brilliantly through the trees, and I would be so filled with the Spirit that my cup would overflow. I was aware of the danger, but I could walk through it knowing that in my mind I was in the presence of the Lord, who was riding the train with me (see Genesis 28:15). And because of that, many people who boarded that train, heads down, sad, in pain, broken, or addicted, left the train with hope after engaging with other people who had also picked up their Bible and shared a message of hope. God be glorified.