A Call to Prayer

                                         

         

         IT HAD BEEN A LONG cold winter, and I was glad to see spring arrive with all the newness of life that it symbolizes.  I remember seeing my first robin of the year, knowing the spring flowers were soon to follow. There is something peaceful about a garden; perhaps it is in the beauty of the flowers of spring or their sweet fragrance that fills the air. To me, it is the flowers of spring that bring a feeling of renewed hope and restoration. Yet as I stand here looking down at a cluster of six yellow tulips that grace my flower garden, there is no beauty to be seen, no sweet fragrance that fills the air, only a feeling of renewed hope that fills my heart. You see, they were planted as a memorial and a call to prayer.

    As early as the ninth century, yellow was used as an identifying color to mark the Jewish people for discrimination. This marking system was revived when Adolf Hilter required all Greman Jews to wear a yellow star of David on September 1, 1941. In some northern Jewish communities, the tulip blooms around the time of their Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust on the twenty-seventh of the Jewish month of Nisan (March or April). Because of these two factors, six yellow tulips have come to symbolize the six million Jews that lost their lives. On a recent trip to Isreal, we made an unscheduled stop at the Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum. It was there in the silent halls that their symbol became my call to prayer.

    The path leading up to the museum itself was called the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations. This walkway is lined on all sides with row after row of trees, each one planted in remembrance of those who helped protect the Jewish people during this dark time in our history. On the grounds were several memorials depicting the artist's view of this tragic event. One was an abstract sculpture called The Scream of a Mother. I felt small in comparison as I looked upon the screaming mother holding the limp body of her child. As we entered the museum itself, silence filled the air, only broken by the gentle crying of those visiting. My heart was saddened as I looked upon the yellow Star of David and read how this mark of discrimination, which brought so much pain and death to those who wore it, was made and distributed by forced Jewish labor. The tears fell freely from my eyes as I read the accounts of those who had been held captive. I stood in awe before a mural of a dorm within the concentration camps of Europe. I can still see the faces of those within its walls. Words can not express what I saw there or the feelings I experienced, but there was one area that had such an impact on me I feel I must try.

                                                                                                      

   The cold reality of what I was about to witness was first seen in a sculpture called Adolescence Broken Off, which stood on the cavern cradling the Children's Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance. This memorial is for the 1.5 million children who perished during the Holocaust. The money to fund the sculpture was donated by the surviving parents of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy who was put to death in Auschwitz. The memorial consist of several square pillars standing in rows like children lined up for a portrait. The ashen color of the stone, standing so still, was hard enough to bear until I noticed that the top of the pillars was left uncut and unfinished, just as the lives of these children were cut off before they were given the chance to live them. When I first entered the Hall of Remembrance, my eyes met with portraits, suspended from the ceiling, of the innocent children; the silence was deafening, broken only by the reading of their names, ages, and place of birth. Next, we were told to place our hand on a rail, and as we inched our way forward, we were led into a darkened room covered from ceiling to floor with glass. In the center of the room was a pedestal arranged with candles. The flames reflecting from the glass appeared to be thousands of little starts reaching towards heaven. As we were led outside, not a word was spoken by anyone. many were crying; others just walked away silently with the cold reality they had just seen and heard etched on their faces.

    This wasn't a place you just saw with your eyes, but with your heart. For me, it was a silent reality that was more devastating than I could have ever imagined. The images left in my mind and on my heart from that day would remain with me forever. To this day when I remember the tears still flow freely.

    Over the years, the strength of the Jewish people has been seen as they continue to strive in overcoming this terrible tragedy. On the Day of Remembrance, a poem entitled "Unto Every Person There Is a Name" is read to perpetuate the memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust as individuals. The opening stanza reads, "Unto every person there is a name, bestowed on him my God, and given to him by his parents." (The only name that appeared on the poem was Zelda)    

    Six million Jews died a tragic senseless death, of whom one and a half million were children, while the world, for the most part, remained silent. This day servers to remind those who will listen to never allow a human life to die in vain, for all must be remembered in the eyes of man and in the eyes of God. 

        Several months later, after I had returned home, the reality of what I experienced that day came like a flood into my mind. Sometimes when praying, I like to have a reference point, something I can see or touch to help me stay focused on what I am praying for. The images of the children of the children filled my thoughts, but they had no faces. There were no candles lit. These were the babies lost to a present-day Holocaust on the abortion tables across our country. Children marked for extinction because we claim our freedom of choice. Mankind has not learned from the past; they have only found another way to eliminate what stands in their way. The choices we make have caused an endless number of babies to be thrown aside, not even to be recognized as human life. Never given a name. Most never to be remembered. The words of the Jewish poet filled my heart, "Unto every person, there is a name bestowed on him by God." These little ones were known by God when they were conceived in their mothers' womb. Psalm 139:15 and 16 (NKJV) states, "My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me when as yet they were none of them." It is interesting to note that in this passage of scripture, two Jewish publications translate the text using more of a human approach uses the phrase "Your eyes saw my unformed limbs"; and the Complete Jewish Bible, "My bones were not hidden from you," and "Your eyes could see me as an embryo." (Tanakh is an acronym for the Old Testament. T for torah, which means "Pentateuch;" N for neviim which means "prophets;" and KH for ketuvim, which means "writtings.") The value of human life appears more evident when read in this text. My heart cries out to these little ones yet unborn and so rejected. No value placed in them. No name recorded to be read in the halls of remembrance.

    I sat for what seemed like a very long time in the silence of my prayer closet before the images of the Yad Vashem filled my thoughts once again. I remembered standing before the Wall of Remembrance, where once a year, the survivors and their families gather to take part in a memorial ceremony. At one point in the ceremony, a siren is blown, and for a period of two minutes, throughout the entire country, the people unite. All work is halted. Cars and busses pull to the side of the road. Everywhere, people stop what they are doing as an entire nation stands in silence, showing reverence to the victims of the Holocaust.

    A sculpture I could not bear to look upon pressed its way into my memory; it was the "Memorial to the Victims in Camps." The artist was creating a mental picture of these victims in the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the concentration camps. Only, this fence was made of twisted bodies that appeared to be screaming soundlessly to heaven with their sharply angled limbs forming the wire and their hands fashioning the knots. Suddenly, I remembered a conversation I had, had with my dad after I returned and had shared with him what I had seen. He told me he was with the medical team that first liberated the camp of Dachau. From what he shared with me, what I saw depicted in this sculpture was more of a vision of reality than just an artist's view of the tragic event.

                                                             

     I tried to turn away from what I was seeing in my mind's eye, but it held me captive; then suddenly, the image changed, and I could not refrain from crying out. Some time ago, I don't remember just when I had seen a picture of Christ crying as He held an unborn child in His hand. There are no memorials to these victims. No Hall of Names containing the Pages of Testimony symbolic of their gravestones. As a nation, we do not unite in reverence to their memory; instead, we stand divided, torn between the freedom of choice and the right to life. Oh, how it must grieve the heart of God.

    When I look down on the cluster of six yellow tulips, I am reminded of that day. I came out of my prayer closet with a renewed sense of value towards life and a hope that as a nation we would repent and stand together, as the Jewish people have, to remember those lives we have taken by abortion. The Word of God says He is looking for those who will make up a hedge and stand in the gap before Him. Second Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV) says, "If my people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."

    "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34, NKJV).

    Man's inhumanity to man leaves its scars on generation after generation. The visible evidence of the Holocaust can be seen not only in numbers tattooed on the forearm of its survivors but in places like the Yah Vashem, which stands a memorial to its victims. But only God can see the scars and the victims left by the choices we make when we place our will above the will of God. Psalm 123:1,4,8 and 13 (NKJV) speaks of God's perfect knowledge of man, "O Lord, You have searched me and know me . . . For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether . . . If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there . . . For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb."

    We are known by God, and His love for us caused Him to reach out with the nailed-scared hands of His only son, Jesus Christ, to offer forgiveness for our sins. Beloved, if you are reading this and you have has an abortion, know God loves you and is ready to forgive you. He wants to heal the scars of your past and give you a renewed hope for the future. He has said in His Word He would wipe every tear from your eyes and there would be no more sorrow or pain, only the joy of living in His presence for all eternity. Let me pray with you right now that you may begin anew, healed, and forgiven.

    "Heavenly Father, I stand here with Your daughter, asking for your forgiveness. I have allowed my will to come before the innocent life of another, Come into my heart and forgive me of my sin. Take this burden from me and show me how I might use my life to make a difference in the fight against abortion. Father, shower Your daughter in Your love that she may know the power of your forgiveness. It is in Jesus' name I pray."