Holocaust Memorial Day

Sculpture_-_DachauBack when I was a teenager, and we lived in Germany, we used to take holidays down in Bavaria or Austria. It’s a part of the world I absolutely love with it’s high mountain peaks, thick forests, hidden waterfalls and springs, and amazingly beautiful castles and towns.

It’s also a place where they don’t hide away from the horrors that came out of the region before and during World War 2. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis, the “hideaway” of the Eagles Nest at Berchtesgaden, and the concentration camp at Dachau.

It’s 70 years since the liberation of the camp at Auschwitz-Berkenau, and it’s also holocaust memorial day, and that always makes me remember the time that we went to Dachau.

Outside the gates of the camp you can hear the sounds of traffic driving by, birds chirping in the trees and children laughing and playing. Walk through the gates and it’s as if the very horrors of the events there cancel out all noise so that there’s utter silence. No cars, no birds, no laughter, even babies stopped crying. You are suddenly and brutally hit with the very nature of evil as you enter the camp and there were several people around us who cried just from entering – a sentiment I can fully understand, and I would probably do the same if I were to revisit today now that I understand more.

The Germans themselves carried around the shame of that time with openness, humility, shame and a deep sorrow that runs deeper than I think any of us can imagine. But they are also a proud people, and in their openness they show themselves to be strong in their resolve to ensure that such events do not happen again and to also show that these were atrocities committed by a different generation, and not reflecive of the people now.

Walking around the camp was an assault in the way that your senses, emotions, preconceptions and humanity were confronted with the pain of human suffering on the one hand, and the depths of human depravity on the other. That it is possible for one human being to commit such acts against another defies all humanity and you want to cry out that surely nobody could do such things – except you can’t as the evidence is there before you in the accomodation blocks, the work areas and the “shower” blocks.

At the end of the tour was a museum with diaries, personal belongings, photographs and more. Those who hadn’t wept before couldn’t hold back as you saw the mountains of human corpses, the emaciated walking dead, the arrogant and haughty faces of the officers in charge.

For those who were able there was a video reel available to view as you exited the museum. My parents gave me the choice, but I couldn’t face any more and so declined. My dad went in and when he came out he was broken. I’ve never seen such a haunted look on my dads face before or since, and in some ways that really cemented the reality of what we were experiencing.

A couple of weeks ago the BBC ran a drama around the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the architects behind the horrors of the camps, and it brought it all flooding back. They included video footage of people and events at Auschwitz, as well as real footage from the trial, and I could do nothing but sit and weep.

On this day I hope that we, the human race, sit up together as one and remember these events. And as we do so, let us all cry out “NO MORE” – and let us all resolve to never forget and to ensure that our children are taught the lessons and the horrors so that they may never be repeated.

 

Not settling for OK.

No More!

I’ve had enough. Seriously. It’s completely unacceptable and I’m not going to accept it any more – and it’s right that I shouldn’t.

Pain, and other issues, are a part of my life and they have been for far too long. I’ve always seen it as a triumph when I am prayed for and the pain lessens, becomes more manageable, and I can manage to get a decent nights sleep.

But No Longer!

I am not going to settle for pain relief or pain reduction. I’m not going to accept one good night of sleep. I’m not going to let go until I see FULL healing. Until a good nights rest is a normal thing.

I’ve never doubted that God CAN heal me and I’ve never doubted that I will be restored. It’s just that I’ve taken the Christian cop-out route of saying that “I’ll get a new body when I die” – and I’m not going to leave it there any more.

I’m going to be tenacious, persistent and never let go until I know healing. And that’s OK – because it’s biblical. I don’t know why God hasn’t healed me fully yet, but I know that His heart is for me and that He loves me as a Father loves His child. I know that we can Ask, Seek and Knock and that our God is Jehovah Rophi – the God Who Heals. Maybe He’s been waiting for me to realise that I need to be resolute, that I need to stand firm and keep banging on the door.

When we look at scripture we can see Jacob in Genesis 32:26 saying “I will not let you go unless you bless me”. We see Moses holding his arms up to deliver vistory over the Amelekites in Exodus 17:11-12. We can see persistence in the healing of Naaman when he had to bathe 7 times in the Jordan river. We see the blind man crying out “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” – and not stopping until Jesus heard him – and there’s many more examples beside.

The interesting thing about the Moses one in particular, is that Moses got tired and weak. He felt his arms weakening and so they fell down turning the tide of battle in favour of the Amelekites. He need Aaron and Hur to sit him on a stone and lift his arms for him in order to see complete victory.

So, I am saying that today I am going to keep my arms in the air with the staff raised – until the battle is won. I’m going to shout and shout until Jesus stops by me and heals me. I’m going to wrestle and not let go until God blesses me. I’m going to keep on pushing on until I know the fullness of Gods promise for me.

But like Moses – I will get weak. There will be days when I tire and cannot stand. There will be days when my shout becomes a croak and a whisper. And so I need people with me. I need people to be standing firm in prayer with me and pushing forward on my behalf. Will you be one of those people? Will you be willing to pray for me and stand firm on the promises with me? Please.

I am blessed by having so many people around me whose faith leaves me humbled and in awe – will you please stand with me in prayer?

Thank you.

Life in the fast lane

 Life In The Fast Lane

It’s been quite a while since I posted here – not for lack of wanting to, nor for any lack of ideas, but purely because life is one wild maelstrom since we’ve moved. Don’t get me wrong that’s not an excuse, a complaint or a moan, it’s just the way it is.

And that’s the sort of thing we wanted when we moved, although we didn’t anticipate it to this extent.

So what’s been happening since I last posted (which was a bit of a downer of a post I know but it was a fair reflection of how life was that week)? Well, things have got busier and busier.

The kids all have their own lives, both within the church and outside of it. The boys are now members of the local cub/scout troops, our daughter is extremely busy with college work and they all have their own things going on within the church.

The church. What can I say about that? We’ve been so blessed in finding a great community to be a part of and at a really exciting time as well. We’ve all found our own niches and have our own activities and involvements, and we’re all loving life there. Me, well I’ve gone full circle really and I’m back doing both PA and playing in the worship team – it feels so good and it has been a huge answer to prayer.

Of course, the side effect of having such an active life is that we barely have an evening without something going on and our weekends rapidly fill up. It’s meant that all of a sudden we find ourselves with the realisation that we moved home nearly 8 months ago. It’s such a crazy thought as on the one hand it feels like 5 minutes ago, and on the other hand we feeld so well established and settled that it feels as though we’ve lived here for much longer.

So whilst it may seem like I last blogged and ice-age ago, to me it feels like yesterday. Life in the fast lane… gotta love it!

Everything?

Everything?

At Church this week we sang a song by Jules Burt, Paul Oakley and Sam Cox. We were in the middle of a time of worship where I really felt connected to God and then we sang these lyrics:

You’re all I want, You’re all I need
Jesus my love, my everything

All of a sudden I couldn’t actually sing any more. I started praying and my stomach churned as my heart felt ten times heavier. I realised that I couldn’t just sing those lyrics – I had to mean them. The question that was making me feel the way I was was did I really mean them?

Can I honestly stand there and say that Jesus is my everything? Can I really say that He is all I need?

It’s not a simple question when you get to the root of it. Can I really say that I need nothing, and no one, more than Jesus. Above my wife, and above my children. Above the roof over my head and the food on my table.

Each morning I listen to a podcast called “The Daily Audio Bible” which takes you through the Bible in a year – a great way to spend the morning commute and the perfect way for me to start my day. The Old Testament readings this last couple of weeks have been coming from the book of Job and I found myself wondering if I would respond in the same way if, like him, everything was stripped away completely. He lost his wife, his children, his home and his business. Yet still he wouldn’t turn away from God, and he never let go of his trust in God’s judgements and righteousness.

Would I do the same? Surely that’s the ultimate test of those lyrics?

I started typing this immediately as the words were weighing on me, and the worship had moved into a more meditative and prayerful time. When Andrew, one of the leaders of the Church, stood up to speak I stopped to listen and found myself laughing at the way God works. Andrew was saying exactly what I was typing. His words echoed mine as he said “Can we stand there and say that Jesus is our everything? Can we say that He is all we need?”

I ended up singing the lyrics as a prayer and a hearty cry – that I would get to the point where Jesus is all I want and all I need… and where He is my EVERYTHING.

Because, in all honesty, I can’t say that’s where I am right now.

Boxes and Brushes

boxes & brushes

It’s finally happened! On the 12th of July we actually moved from Stamford to Rugby – and the process that was kicked off 5 years ago reached its culmination. With delays occurring even up to the day of the move it proved to be a stressful and nerve-wracking time and not an experience I plan on tackling again anytime soon.

Before I go any further I have got to give a huge shout out of THANKS to everyone who helped us in getting the house in Stamford sorted, packing done, vans loaded, moving in, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, tidying, sorting out DIY etc and anything and everything else. We have managed to achieve a huge amount in the last month and a bit and it couldn’t have been done without the help of family and friends.

Since we moved in we’ve done a lot of work in getting things done – particularly focussing on the kids bedrooms which are now both decorated, unpacked and looking remarkably good. Of course, we did all the sorting out and now the rooms are looking very typical of a boys room and a teenagers room (no visible floor space and you wouldn’t believe that we’d done any tidying up or sorting out!)

Being a techie I have, of course, got some priorities right in sorting out the networking, tv’s, sky, internet and general connectivity 😀 A key focus of all my latest tech setups has been working to try and improve overall functionality whilst reducing the overall impact on our electricity bills – not always the easiest thing to balance out but I’ve at least now started a process that will hopefully allow me to meet the demands of a modern household without fattening the wallets of the power companies too much (boy do I wish there were more eco grants available for solar and wind generation as I’d willingly pop some panels on our roof and a couple of micro turbines)

I had a chat with Mrs H just before we moved and explained that it wasn’t the house I was going to miss in Stamford as it was, put bluntly, an ex-council mid-terrace house with 4 walls and an a-frame roof – what I was going to miss was the people and the places. That’s proven to be true – I really miss some of the people there even though it’s only been a month and a bit. Thankfully we’ve managed to catch up with some folks and even had the weather for a barbeque.

The new house, in contrast to our old one, is one I can see me falling in love with. The house is quirky and full of character, we’ve never seen another house like it. There’s room galore in it so that we can each have our own space and don’t get under each others feet. Everyone who’s seen it has been shocked when they see just how much room it does have as, from the front, it doesn’t look like it’s a big house at all. Quite the opposite in fact as it looks really small from the front aspect. I find myself regularly looking at different areas of the house, garden or workshop (yes, there’s a man cave at the bottom of the garden) and smiling when I realise just how good the house is – and always sending another “thank you” upstairs as there’s no way we’d have got this house without some divine nudging along the way.

The other big thing about the move has been the whole process of trying to get settled in to the area and making new friends. Thankfully God has been ahead of us all the way and there’s a family in the church who live just at the bottom of the hill and we’ve clicked quite well with them. Everyone has been really welcoming and friendly and things will get a bit easier once the kids start at school/college and make more friends and get settled in to a routine a bit more. It’s not the easiest of things for me as I’m not particularly comfortable in new groups and can easily shy away from people – once I get to know folks and get settled it, well that’s a different story… but getting to that stage is a major challenge for me and is something I’m having to try and face head on.

So now it’s time to put down some roots, get settled in, and get ready for whatever we’re called to do. Rugby – you’ve been warned, the Hartleys have arrived! 🙂