On how I love to read! One of the pure joys of life! To sit down and read a good book uninterrupted feels like paradise. Lately I have been listening to audio books while I get my work done in the kitchen. I have to choose my books carefully, because I have so little time. I ask God to lead my choices and reveal truth.
Two books I have listened to recently have impacted me deeply and have guided my interpretation of this war we are now in. This article is about the first book.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This was a beautifully written story of normal people living during a time of growing evil. It centered on an orphan boy in Germany and a blind girl in France. Their stories were told simultaneously and intersected at surprising points. This was not a true story but seemed very historically accurate. It was not written from a Christian perspective and offered no true redemption at the end, but the characters were intriguing and the insight into human nature was compassionate and stunning.
The orphan boy, Werner, was destined to work in the coal mines that had killed his father, but he had a sharp intellect and an abhorrence to the mines. As he and his sister grew up destitute in the orphanage, “The Fuhrer” began to institute more rules and changes. They were told that it was all for their good, but the words did not ring true as conditions in Germany deteriorated. No one wanted to be noticed, to stand out in any way. To attract the attention of any Nazi official was to bring doom on yourself and those you cared about. Everyone complied with each new edict and kept their heads down. When it was demanded that all radios be handed over to the government, Werner decided that he had to destroy the very powerful radio he had built himself. It was too dangerous to keep it. His sister felt bitterly betrayed. She knew that the edict was wrong. This radio had brought them fine music and educational programs from as far away as France. It had been the only light in their dark world. In recent days it had brought news from the battle front, news that contradicted the State Approved News Stations they were allowed to listen to with the weak State Approved radios.
Because Werner’s brilliance with fixing radios became known to the local SS officer, Werner was recommended for the National Political Institutes of Education. This was where Germany’s brightest and strongest boys were sent to be trained to serve The Fuhrer. I found myself wishing that Werner would go, to become a scientist as he had always dreamed, to escape the dark chasm of the mines. Yet I knew that if he did, they would try to crush his spirit and steal his soul.
He did accept the invitation and found out soon enough what this new education was all about; the individual meant nothing, the State meant everything, and the State was being run by the cruelest men in the human race.
Meanwhile Marie-Laure was growing up in France with her father. She was learning to navigate Paris as her sight left her. Her father worked at the National Museum of Natural History and she was raised with all the wonder and delight of curiousity and good books. People were hearing reports about Adolf Hitler in Germany for many years, but few thought it would impact them. It didn’t seem as though France ever earnestly prepared for a war. When the Germans arrived, surrender came so quickly that I wondered if France had even put up a fight. I asked my husband and adult daughter, both of whom I consider almost experts of this time period. They confirmed my impression of France.
Did they have any idea what they were surrendering to? Had they any idea how their surrender would affect their own people and the other European nations?
Soon after, small contingencies of Nazi soldiers would enter each town and occupy. The German forces were so small that the people could have easily banded together and kicked them out. Not a single act of courage was displayed. The people just kept their heads down and tried to stay out of trouble. They handed in their guns. They handed in their radios.
I felt like yelling at them. “Stand up and fight! Don’t give up your country so easily! Fight with all you have! Fight to the death if you have to. Now is your chance! You will not have this chance again!”
How I longed to rewrite the story with wise leaders who had insight into the coming evil. I wanted to add French heroes with stout hearts full of righteousness and compassion, willing to fight for their liberties and the liberties of Europe.
How I longed to see every solider and able bodied person in France take whatever weapons they owned and stand their ground and say, “No Further! This is our land!”
The only courage that arose was the underground resistance, those few who kept their radios and risked everything to send intelligence to the Allies. Marie-Laure was one of those heroes.
In a lovely twist, Marie-Laure’s uncle who had been confined to him home with debilitating fear after he fought in WWI, finally stepped out in courage once he decided to join the resistance.
Still incredible darkness filled every day in both Germany and France, lasting well after the long war finally came to an end.
What have I learned from All the Light We Cannot See
We are in a similar time to the time before Hitler gained his vice grip over Germany and then Europe. We are fighting Socialism (which always becomes Communism) and globalism. (Confused about Socialism in America? Watch this interview with Dinesh D’Souza, author of The Unites States of Socialism.) We are fighting all the evil spirits that still shriek,
“The individual is worth nothing! The State is Everything! There is no God, no morals – only the Fuhrer!”
The words we are hearing are slightly different,
“Unborn babies are worth nothing, white lives are worth nothing, police lives are worth nothing, individual freedoms do not exist! You must yield to the Government to insure the safety of the masses! You must cover your faces and submit to vaccines! There is no God, no Bible that has any bearing on our society! Only what is Politically Correct!”
Instead of making us turn in our phones, TVs, and computers; they are attempting to control all the information we have access to. They would like us to turn in our guns and are working toward this goal.
The spirit is the same. We need to understand the times and have God’s insight into the future. And the results will be similar if we do not stand up and fight NOW! Now is the time.
A good guide to the times is Rick Joyner’s Word for the Week. In his word for Sept 15 he says:
Just as warriors run to the sound of battle, not away from it, patriots run to the crisis that threaten their country, not away from them. The future will belong to those with that initiative…
We must acknowledge that we are at war. We need a “clear trumpet call” so that those who hear it will mobilize. We need to understand that we would not be living now if we were not called to be warriors in this ultimate battle. If we are not called to be in the physical battles unfolding, we are called to be warriors in more effective ways to influence the outcome. The pen really is mightier than the sword, but if we are not called to write we may be called to speak. If we are not called to speak, we are called to stand. To stand is one of the commands Jesus gave to those who live at the end of the age. Standing resolutely for what we believe can be one of the most powerful messages of all.
The costliest war of all time, World War II, was caused by the delusion of weak leaders that they could appease the aggressive, bully spirit rising in their time. It was estimated that Hitler could have been stopped in 1938 by the Czech Republic alone, at the cost of between ten thousand and twenty thousand casualties. This number horrified the squeamish leaders of Britain and France at the time, so they decided to give the Czech Republic to Hitler thinking that would appease him. It did not work, as it never will with such aggressors, and two years later the war came anyway. In that two years, the Nazis had grown much stronger, and the cost of stopping him went to tens of millions of lives lost.
Appeasement has never worked to contain aggressors. Aggressors always come in the same bully spirit, and you can never appease a bully spirit. A bully will never be satisfied. The only way to defeat a bully spirit is to stand up to it. Many of America’s state and local leaders who are under assault from this bully aggression now are trying to appease it, and in just weeks it has multiplied its demands. Where will it stop? It won’t until our leaders stand up to it, but the cost has already grown exponentially…
So, let us keep in mind that at the end of the Book of Revelation it is the “cowardly” who are the first to get thrown into the lake of fire. There is no place in Christianity for cowardice.
How we each fight is a matter of calling. What is God calling you to do?
Repent!
Pray!
Stand!
Speak!
Write!
Vote!
Get involved!
Don’t bow down to false gods of media, government, politics, pharmaceuticals, medical tyranny, humanism, or globalism!
Don’t keep your head down and try to survive another day.
All I have to do is catch a glimpse of a TV in a waiting room, see a sign in a front yard, talk to a friend, glance at Facebook, click on an article and read it…
[How we long for the Compassion and Justice of the rule of King Jesus to be established here on the earth. It will most certainly be established, and I have a feeling that Jesus will establish it through us, his church.]
grace is my superhero 