Tim's Topics: From My Mothers Eyes

Tim's Topics: From My Mothers Eyes: Romans 15:4   ESV  For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the enco...

From My Mothers Eyes

Romans 15:4 ESV 

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

Eighty-one years ago, this June 6th, the largest invasion armada that man has ever known sailed from the coast of England to the shores of Normandy France. This armada went to free the people of France from occupation, and to free the world from bonds of war. We can never thank our veterans enough, some of them in their late nineties.

As I write this week’s blog, I would like to come at D-Day and World War II from a different perspective. The perspective that I write about, is the perspective from the eyes of a child, in this case the eyes belong to my mother.

My Mother grew up in England, with her young years as being a witness to a country at war and a world at war. From my earliest memories I would hear my mother speak about her time as a child spent in the family’s air-raid shelter, sitting out bombing raids on her country. I would hear the stories of her and her siblings wearing gas mask packs, as they would venture to and from school. I would hear of the stories of my grandfather going into London after bombing raids to free the dead and wounded from the rubble of bombed out buildings. I would hear about the sound that V-1 and V-2 rockets sound like when the fly over your head and what it is like when the sound stops before they fall to the ground and explode. I would hear about my grandparents considering shipping my mom and her siblings overseas as to escape the war. I would hear about the kids getting candy from the United States soldiers, and the words, “Got Any Gum Chum”. I would hear about the near starvation of a country as it was blockaded during the war, and what it was like to be hungry. I saw first hand what it was like as a child when the fear came over my adult mothers eyes when the severe weather sirens (not air-raid) would sound in Moline Illinois. And finally, I would hear about a young eight-year-old girl named "Mary" looking up to the sky as the largest invasion force that man has ever known, flew over her head on the way to France.

My friends, June 6, 1944 is much more than a day, it is a time when the world was freed from tyranny. Hopefully the beginning of the end in which children would see the horrific sight of war firsthand.

Today’s text from Romans, speaks to our learning from history for our instruction, and that because of God’s Word we have a hope that these sights will never again be witnesses by our children. Additionally, we learn from history about the brave people that fought and died for our freedom, in the hopes that they would be that last to have to go out and fight and die. That this would be the last war to end the horrible sights that children see.

Unfortunately, this is not the case and war and its horrible images exist to this very day. Let us thank those brave men that battled, fought, and won on D-Day 1944, and let us continue to follow God’s Word and learn from history, and to continue in "His Hope."

Thank you, Veterans, and those who never came home from those shores. And thank you Mom, for sharing the stories of what your eyes saw, with me.

This is the Day that the Lord has made. Pastor Tim.