perspective

I finished reading a children's book "Boy in the Striped Pajamas" this morning, a middle-grade historical fiction that has a unique point of view on the holocaust. As always, the book and the movie have large differences, but the main plot sticks to the same premise.

Nothing like something as horrific as the Holocaust can help slap your priorities into place.  I am such a spoiled brat.  Here am I aggravated because this stupid cold makes it difficult to breathe and our phones and internet are out for day 6 of this month, when I am living in the land of the free.  I have a Christian brother about my age in prison in China who has been sentenced to 25-30 years, essentially a life sentence, and whose fifteen year old son and wife are struggling to get by without his income.  He is denied the opportunity to appeal, usually denied his monthly visits by his wife and attorney, and I complain because I have a cold.

I don't understand the horrors of war, of hate, and of ignorance, and probably never will fully grasp the hows and whys this side of heaven.  I sometimes question in my heart the Old Testament teachings that were comparable to the holocaust and other such modern genocides, and wonder what this God I serve truly thinks about such matters.  I cling to the promise from Psalm 116:15 that the death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord, but still ponder why death for His saints in most of the world must be so horrific.

So now I'm struggling to put my thoughts on things that are good and truth and just and lovely and of good report, and not on the depraved, unchangeable past.  May my heart be renewed and revived, may I willingly choose to stand for what is right and good, not matter the cost.  And the wimp inside whispers, "and may I never have to suffer for it."  Stoic, I'm not.