Finding Hope and Faith in Unbroken Stories

then cuz the truth is on the one hand we're all writing our stories but none of us is in charge of our stories um I have the agency to be able to decide how I will respond to life and how I will take action and what I'm able to create and innovate but I am not God I don't get to decide my story and yet somehow in partnering with God in surrendering to God with a full active initiative taking deeply uh God trusting uh approach to life it is possible to enter into to connect my broken story with a larger story that has the hope of redemption [00:44:32]

as of April 29th 1942 all Dutch Jews are required to wear a yellow star on their outer garment the quote unquote Jew star it is an ancient practice in Europe mandated by the Pope in the 13th century and maintained in some form by civil and religious authorities until the 18th century when Frederick William I of Prussia abolished the practice for anyone who could pay approximately $75,000 in current money now near the midpoint of the 20th century that old requirement has found a young woman who lives in South Amsterdam her name is Eddie hillison for nearly six months she's been keeping a diary in which she records the most intimate details of her inner life her friendships her loves the worsening social and political situation in Holland [02:00:00]

she writes in her diary where she takes this part of her mission in life because she's a very gifted writer to notice to see people sometimes people wearing the yellow star and has a vision of golden Radiance of seeing the dignity and the worth of that person and recording it if I forget you Jerusalem the psalmist says may my right hand lose its cunning and she takes onto herself the ministry of not forgetting on the day when she writes one of the most powerful of these kind of Visions she also writes these words never give up now this may be God's word to you today never give up never Escape take everything in and perhaps suffer that's not too awful either but never never give up [03:52:00]

Eddie makes a promise to herself and the world I shall wield this slender fountain pen as if it were a hammer and my words will have to be so many Hammer Strokes with which to beat out the story of Our Fate her country Holland is taken over by the Nazis and she begins to read the Psalms and the Old Testament and Augustine and the gospel of Matthew and begins to find God the Living God she does it all the wrong way she is taught how to pray by two men both of whom are her lovers now that can't work um and when I read about that and then you read some of her prayers they will just make You Weep [05:03:00]

from her first faltering impulse to kneel on the mat in her bathroom she finds a place for kneeling everywhere in her house eventually she will fight it in the barracks of a detention Camp because that's where she ends up she could have uh sought to escape from the Nazis and many of her friends try to get her to do this but something inside her as she is moving towards God impels her not to do this but to identify with people and she volunteers to go from Amsterdam to westerbork which is a kind of a Nazi Transit Center over and over and over to be with people she Styles herself the girl who learned to pray and plans to write a story about it from a Nazi Transit Camp [06:31:00]

you have made me so rich oh God please let me share out your beauty with Open Hands this from a Nazi Transit Camp my life has become an uninterrupted dialogue with you God one great dialogue sometimes when I stand in some corner of the camp my feet planted on your Earth my eyes raised toward your Heaven tears run down my face tears of deep emotion and gratitude at night too when I lie on my bed and rest in you oh God tears of gratitude run down my face and that is my prayer most of her prayers are prayers of adoration and she does not pray for herself but for others ultimately at her lowest points she ask that her life become a pray [07:41:00]

her desire to be of help to God causes her to be of help to people she sees a a young paralyzed girl with enormous eyes who is having a a hard time dying and helps her to die she smuggles food to people or clothes to people or medicine to people or stands by people to pray for them she sees it all and takes it all in so that she can also feel it for people she calls herself the thinking heart of the barracks the last sentence of her diary reads we should be willing to act as a balm for all wounds [08:48:00]

Eddie Hillis her parents and her two brothers were unexpectedly selected themselves for transport to aitz in The disbled Scrambled to collect a few things for the journey they were separated into different wagons in haste Eddie scribbled a postcard and tossed it from the window of a moving train her final words it said opening the Bible at random I find this the Lord is my high tower and then in a last ecstatic gesture of what can only be guessed at she adds we left the camp singing we left the camp to be sent to aitz singing it is her letter to the world a farmer found it and mailed it to the Amsterdam address [09:35:00]

such a person lived and w Walked In Hell on Earth with God that was her story everybody has a story our stories often get interrupted but they are never beyond the reach of God you are never beyond the reach of God today whatever your story and however it has been interrupted never never never never give up [10:57:00]

this series is all about stories everybody has a story and everybody's story matters and we want to know about your story whether it's a story of coming to Faith or a story of spiritual growth whatever it is we're here for you you can email that to us at connect at become.com or you can text it to us you can also sign up for daily reminders whenever we drop a new video via text by texting the word become to the number [11:36:00]