“Some things I try to forget,” Mr. Barr said. “At night when I think of them, I try to put them out of my mind as soon as possible.” He shook his head solemnly.
We were sitting around the supper table with our 80-year-old neighbor, Mr. Barr. He had been in World War II and had been sent to Germany to fight against the enemy in the 1940s.
“Did you have any close calls?” we asked.
“Oh, yes,” he nodded emphatically. “I was a combat engineer, and I built bridges for the troops to cross over the whole five months I was over there. Once, when the snow had melted in the hills up above and the creeks and rivers were swollen and raging, five of us in a boat tried to take some cable over to the other side and our boat overturned. We had on our snow packs, field jackets and steel helmets.” He laughed when he said, “That can really weigh you down. But when I went under, I came back up and flipped that helmet off my head and swam for all I was worth. I made it. Two of the men couldn’t swim and they disappeared. We thought they had drowned, but they had grabbed onto the boat and they showed up a few days later.
“Sometimes we would be working,” Mr. Barr said, “and the enemy would shoot their ‘Screaming Mimis.’ That’s what those big artillery shells were called. You could hear them from the time they were fired till they hit. It always sounded like they were coming right at you, but you couldn’t tell where they were. It made us all very fearful, you know. You’d just lie as flat as a pancake, and if there were a place where it was two inches lower than the rest of the land, you’d flatten into it.
“One time we were building a bridge and we didn’t have enough workers. There was an enemy tank up on the hill, so we wanted to get our job done and get out of there fast! I carried a 300-pound cable on my back and waded up to my chest in water to get it over to the other side. We built a 90-foot bridge in 90 minutes. I always had back trouble after that.”
Mr. Barr sat remembering, unable to forget the worst part of his life, even though it had happened 55 years ago.
I looked at him and said softly, “Thank you, Mr. Barr.”
He looked touched and said, “We didn’t get thanks from too many when we came back.”
I felt sorry to hear that people were so ungrateful to the soldiers after all they went through. And there is a Friend who died unselfishly for you and me so that we might go to heaven. He is the Lord Jesus Christ, and He came to earth to show God’s love toward men. He said, “I came not to judge the world, but to save the world” (John 12:4747And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world. (John 12:47)). He came to His people Israel, but they would not accept Him as their Messiah, and they, with the Roman soldiers, crucified Him. But while He hung on the cross, unknown to the Jews and the Romans, Jesus was accomplishing a great work. The Bible says, “Who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree [the cross]” (1 Peter 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24)).
The Bible tells us how God expects us to live, but we have not obeyed it completely. We have sinned because we cannot keep God’s laws. But the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth to be our “Redeemer.” A redeemer pays someone else’s debt, and that was His unselfish purpose in coming. He will pay your debt if you will come to Him with your debt of sins and accept Him as your Redeemer.
If you have already accepted Christ’s payment on the cross for your sins, have you thanked Him? You know, Mr. Barr flies the American flag at his house. He wants to show that he loves his homeland and he is grateful for what the flag represents. Do you show for others to see that you love the Lord Jesus and are grateful for all He has done for you?
ML-08/24/1997