BY JACK WARD
PASTOR, TOMAHAWK MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH

There is a beautiful and important scene in the movie Dr. Zhivago. The Comrade General is talking with Tanya. He asks her, “How did you come to be lost?” She replies, “Well, I was just lost.” He asks again, “No, how did you come to be lost?” Tanya doesn’t want to say. She says simply, “I was just lost. My father and I were running through the city and it was on fire. The revolution had come and we were trying to escape, and I was lost.”

The Comrade General asked more emphatically, “How did you come to be lost?” She still didn’t want to say. Finally though she did say, “We were running through the city and my father let go of my hand and I was lost.” Then she added plaintively, “He let go.” This is what she didn’t want to say.

The Comrade General said, “This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Tanya. Komarov was not your real father. Zhivago is your real father and I can promise you, Tanya, that if this man had been there, your real father, he would never have let go of your hand.”