by Maggie White
Dunkirk. Remember Dunkirk?
The 400,000 Allied soldiers backed against the ocean, riddled with gunfire, with no hope of rescue.
Remember the Nazi war machine closing in on them?
Remember how it seemed that the hope of a free world was gone?
Remember how a bit of ocean and white cliffs stood between the world as we knew it and the world that Hitler wanted it to be?
Remember the Darkest Hour, when pulling out was the only sane move, and even that hope was snuffed out by crippled manpower and a fast-sinking Navy, passing days punctuated by failed attempts to lift men off the beach?
A hopeless situation, dubbed a colossal military disaster by Winston Churchill, was overturned piece by piece, one obstacle after another, and history proves that something far superior can rise from the brink of disaster – the thing called hope. The free world went to the rescue of those men at Dunkirk. Fellow Brits stepped up to save them, coming to the rescue in their own civilian fleet of fishing boats and yachts.
Walter Lord, in his fine book The Miracle of Dunkirk, states, "It is customary to look on Dunkirk as a series of days. Actually, it should be regarded as a series of crises. Each crisis was solved, only to be replaced by another, with the pattern repeated again and again. It was the collective refusal of men to be discouraged by this relentless sequence that is important."
The refusal to be discouraged equaled no giving up. The defensive situation of Britain, post-Dunkirk, led to a national patriotism unparalleled since. The whole story, each crisis in the rearview, led to a countermeasure, with more allies, more ammo, better plans, and a "go" on June 6th, 1944 on the beaches of Normandy.
Yes, Dunkirk was in 1940. D-Day, as we call it, was the Allied comeback in 1944.
D-Day fascinated me as a little girl. Hitler's Nazi army running helter-skelter fit my ideal world where good guys stormed beaches and bad guys ran; it fit the world where Roy Rogers drove the outlaws out of town, justice rolled on like raging waters, and righteousness like a never-failing stream. Now grown up, with a little more real-world behind me, it's Dunkirk that stills my heart, stirs my soul, and holds up a deeply instructive reflection of my own life. It's a reflection that an epic story of victory couldn't give me because you understand, most of the time, our lives consist of Dunkirks and we are of the overrun, and not those who storm beaches.
Well, all of this about Dunkirk is a preface to another story.
Some may wonder if this is about to be my story and the reason I've been silent for two years. I considered writing that. But if I'm honest, none of our stories are over so long as we breathe. The mysteries of God's intentions in the shadowlands of my life and suffering are far from fully revealed. What it is to live more than conquering, utterly convinced of His love, with a life kept and held in His hand is a thing I learn more about every day.
To try to encapsulate a season of loss and learning and present it in some beneficial way would be akin to being a puffed up and chairborne intern at a one-dimensional battle map of French beaches, playing with lives and disaster because I can, not because I should.
Our stories can wait; I also am waiting. Instead, I will tell the story that changed me. A story that carries the same muscular heartbeat as the Dunkirk story, but also carries electricity. By electricity, I mean, the source of all hope.
Ruth. Remember Ruth?
The story starts before she enters the picture. It starts before the book opens. It starts before the beginning of time, when the God who has no beginning or end created mankind and initiated a plan to save sinful people and reconcile them to Himself - a holy and righteous God.
The face of those being rescued, the type and precursor to all who would repent and turn to God throughout the ages, was the people of Israel - a nation who historically covenanted to follow the God of their fathers, who lived under His divine care and law. These are the same Israelites who, after receiving God's promise to bring them into the Promised Land, spent four hundred years as slaves in Egypt, where God's promise became a distant memory. They were then freed and led out of Egypt by signs and wonders wrought by the mighty hand of God. Instead of taking a direct route back to this Promised Land, they wandered forty years in the wilderness, thinking again that this God had failed them.
A generation died before the Jordan River split in two and the Israelites crossed over to take possession of the land God had promised them. They recommitted themselves to following the law of God, and were exhorted to, "Fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord" (Joshua 24:14).
In the years that followed, there was a cycle: God blessed and delivered His people when they sought and obeyed Him and He judged them when they turned away. The nations around were a temptation that led them astray morally, and then a thorn in their side to attack and enslave them physically. Deliverers, called "judges", emerged to defend the people and lead them back to the ways of God. The general landscape is summed up in Judges 21:25: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
It was in this Promised Land, "in the days when the judges ruled" (Ruth 1:1) that the story of Ruth opens.
To be continued! Read the next part in April!
Maggie (Ford) White recently relocated to Fort Bragg, NC with her husband, Joshua, a growing baby, her dog, Kevin, and the joy that God is still the same. She has worked alternately as a Spanish translator, political activist, videographer, registered nurse, and writer over the years. More than anything, she wants to live for eternity, encourage girls and women in the Word of God, and make the Gospel known. She enjoys distance running and cooking three meals a day, but she spends her best hours studying Scripture.
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