In the Past

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement

In the Past

The horse and his rider both were outfitted to look as if they had stepped through a time machine straight from Germany in World War One onto the field near Pungo, Virginia. All around us, tents housed emergency cots with costumed people clothed the way doctors and nurses dressed during that war. The tents bristled with their medical instruments and officers with weapons used in those years. British, American, French, and German soldiers were represented. Overhead, old world war airplanes buzzed through the air some sporting German Swastikas, some British stars and some a different American star. Even bi-winged planes flew past. Popular music from the war blared from antique phonographs. The festival at the Military Aviation Museum kept all five senses alert. We stopped to talk to the horseman and stroke his horse’s nose. Dressed to represent the Germany army, the rieder talked of history. Here in this festive atmosphere, the trappings of a brutal war were stripped of the hostilities of those years. The World Wars are over, and we are friends again with most of those countries we fought. Loyalties have shifted and alliances are different now. It is a historical time brought to remembrance via museums which display the material trappings of the time.

Time mitigated the hostility and bitterness. We watched planes that once shot at each other mimicking mild air battles careful to stay respectfully distant. The military festival made us think. Over time, God can heal the bitterness and wounds of all kinds of offenses and antagonism. He can cause bitter enemies to love again regardless of grievous harm that has gone before. He wants people to put aside hostility and learn to care about one another.  We can ask God to change our thinking to help our hearts to forgive and then open our hearts to love. If we ask His help, we can call an armistice to any quarrel that separates us. We can create peace in our hearts by forgiving the wounds others give us, and then with the supernatural help of our magnificent God we can actually learn to care about those who made war against us. What private two-people battle wages in our lives? Pray about these personal antagonisms and ask for God’s love to become so powerful in our hearts as to overcome our hostile emotions.