Post 71-The Killing Post

                                           

                                                         Photos by Kim Zahan of the post in the marsh, Ocean City, NJ

                                                Contact this blog if interested in contacting K. Zahan for more nature photos

            This is Easter weekend and we’re down the shore in Ocean City, NJ.  While it may look like spring outside, it doesn’t feel like it. I just returned from the local Starbucks to get some blueberry muffins and the temperature is only in the high 30s at 7:30AM. While it doesn’t seem like it today, Easter down here is almost like the unofficial start of spring, especially when it is this early.  Lots of families celebrate this sacred holiday by returning to their favorite vacation site each spring to kick off the new, forthcoming summer. Memories are waiting to be made, but only after people go to church wearing a coat or jacket and dream of the warmer weather to, hopefully, come soon.

            Ocean City’s prides itself on being “America’s Greatest Family Resort.” It has one of the best boardwalks on the Jersey Shore, lots of beaches and a state park with several miles of unobstructed beach and dune structure, a terrific downtown shopping area, and alcohol is not for sale on the island. Since it is so flat, bicycles in the summer are one of the main modes of transportation. (For older readers, remember when we were kids and  those big tires that were on the Cadillac of bicycles, the Schwinn Phantom? That style of bike is everywhere down here.)

            Because last night was a full moon, the high tide is higher than normal and the low, lower. Right now it is almost high tide, and the little creeks that wander throughout the marsh are spilling their banks of the incoming, still cold, bay water. The weathered section of someone’s wooden, dock, catwalk is now afloat on the incoming tide. It tore loose during a previous storm and floated into our marsh as so much flotsam and has remained as an eyesore since that time.  But now, a soon-to-be-nesting pair of Mallards are sitting on it warming in what little sun there is.  

            The marsh is brown due to the dead grasses, matted down from a winter of icy high tides and snow from various nor’easters that pounded the East Coast over the past several months. At the end of the marsh, right next to a low tide, mud flat and the bay, is an Osprey nest. While yellow daffodils and exploding masses of forsythia are sure signs of spring, so is the return of the Ospreys to the New Jersey coast.  For those of us fortunate enough to live close to the marsh, seeing Ospreys return to their nest is a welcome site. The nest is a man made structure that initially was inhabited by a lone Osprey about  ten or so years ago. For the first couple of years, there was just one bird. Then one spring a second showed up and also took up residence. Apparently, they were male and female because after three or four years, the first babies were born. (Ospreys mate for life.) And since that time, every year at least one if not two babies have been born.

            Let me digress for a moment. Perhaps some of you have heard of Rachael Carson, if not read her influential work, The Silent Spring, published in September 1962. Her book was met with fierce opposition from the chemical industry because she exposed what synthetic chemicals were doing to the environment and, among other things, the wide spread death of birds. The Silent Spring kick-started the environmental movement in America that in all likelihood began in 1928 with Henry Beston’s book about Cape Cod’s great beach, called The Outermost House. (A note about Beston’s book...for the past six to eight years, I have read this book at least every other winter.)  Among other things, Carson’s research into why birds were dying revealed a connection between cancer in humans and the use of many of the chemical pesticides. (This whole thing makes a fascinating, yet scary read for anyone interested not only in environmental things but the relationship between the natural environment and today the foods we eat, the things we drink and the health products we put on to look better or smell good. Rachael Carson died at age 56...of cancer.)

            A further digression....I began boating on Chesapeake Bay in the mid 1960s. Ospreys, a fish hunting and eating bird that looks similar to the American Bald Eagle, but is a bit smaller and without the white head and with some black feathers, was disappearing due to DDT thinning their egg shells. By the early 1970s when I returned to the Chesapeake, Ospreys had all but disappeared. But thanks to the courageous work of Rachael Carson and then others, chemical companies in time were forced to make changes. Today Ospreys number in the thousands.   

            It’s now evening, and the sun set about an hour ago. The wind has picked up and is blowing from the southeast. Snow!!! is predicted for Easter night. I just lit a fire in the fireplace. When the wind blows at about 15 miles per hour and higher from the southeast, it finds a hole in the caulk that surrounds the living room slider and it causes a whistle; one that is quite loud.  I suppose some people would probably find that increasing and diminishing whistling sound annoying, but to me it adds to the atmosphere of a place near the ocean.

            But back to “our Ospreys.” They have built a nest on the manmade structure at the end of the marsh. An Osprey nest looks like a hodgepodge pile of sticks, which they line with moss, marsh grass, or even plastic bags. In fact, earlier this morning when I first began writing, one of the birds flew past our window with about a three foot length of marsh grass trailing from its talons. They often sit on the nest, but when it’s time to eat they take off and start flying over the water near their nest looking for fish. (Other names for the Osprey are fish hawk, river hawk, or sea hawk.) They will fly up to 100 feet in the air. They have excellent eyesight and once a fish is spotted, they dive with their pinpoint sharp talons extended to catch their prey.  Sometimes they will take the fish back to the nest to tear apart and eat, but sometimes they fly back into the marsh, right in front of our deck to eat it on a post that stands upright in the marsh.

 The Osprey with a large flounder, eating it on the post.

            I really get jealous of those birds. They catch one or two fish a day, sometimes flounder or other types that are nearly as long as they are, and an Osprey can be up to 24inches long.  While I haven’t fished much, whenever I do I usually get skunked, while the birds keep on catching. So sometimes they bring the fish back to the post right off our deck. The post is a weathered 4x4” (or a 5x5”) piece of wood. There is no telling how long that post has been out there, about 50 yards away from our balcony. Someone pounded it into the marsh for some reason and it stands upright about 3 ½ to 4 feet high.

            The Osprey land on the post with the fish in its talons. We sometimes refer to it as the “killing post.” Many times they’ll wait before beginning to tear at the fish. As they sit a scene from the movie “Finding Nemo” develops. Seagulls come from out of nowhere and land in the marsh around the base of the post. As the Osprey picks at the fish, sometimes bloody pieces land in the grass and the gulls go after the scraps. Remember the gulls in the movie who kept squawking, “Mine.” “Mine.” This is what it reminds me of.  But because it is Easter weekend, I am reminded of something else.

 

Easter morning at 6:33AM

 

            In the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 24 are these words of Jesus. He said of His return,

²⁷ For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.  NKJV

            Sunrises at the shore can be both beautiful and unique at the same time. Carol is sitting by the fire, reading her Bible and looking out the east facing window. She said, “The sky looks like winter.” Jesus will again be seen, but this time it will be when He comes in the eastern sky. The current sky is all clouds of grey, with but one exception. There is a narrow, clear-of-clouds section, just above the horizon and below the dark cloud line. Although the sun itself has not yet appeared, its early light has momentarily turned that narrow strip an almost blood red. 

            It was a killing post. The shape of the piece of wood on which Jesus was crucified, according to some, cannot be exactly described. It could have been a rough wooden pole or a cross in the traditional sense that many Christians picture when the word is mentioned. But whatever it was, nails were driven through Him and into that rough beam of wood. His blood would have run from that piercing. Then after Jesus died and soldier pierced His side, His red blood again would have run down. Why?

3 We despised him and rejected him;
    he endured suffering and pain.
No one would even look at him—
    we ignored him as if he were nothing.

4 “But he endured the suffering that should have been ours,
    the pain that we should have borne.
All the while we thought that his suffering
    was punishment sent by God.
5 But because of our sins he was wounded,
    beaten because of the evil we did.
We are healed by the punishment he suffered,
    made whole by the blows he received. Isaiah 53:3-5 (GNT)

            There is a somewhat derogatory term in Christian circles that refers to the people who only attend church on the high holidays, such as Christmas and Easter. They are sometimes called “C & E Christians.”  But that is the thing about Easter, it’s not just a high church holiday. The world celebrates this day as the day that Jesus died for us all: those who regularly attend church; those who only periodically attend church; those who never attend church; or those who despise and reject Him. Why?

(Because) all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 3:23 (KJV)

 

²³ (And) the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NASB)

 

¹¹...remember what you were in the past. ¹² At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God. ¹³ But now, in union with Christ Jesus you, who used to be far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ. ¹⁴ For Christ himself has brought us peace....Ephesians 2:11-14 (GNT)      

            In closing, while on the one hand the message of Easter is quite simple—we all sinned so we’ll be forever separated from God but for God’s son Jesus, who died for us to take away our sins—on the other hand, this message has been spoken for a couple thousand years and predicted hundreds of years before that....and people still harden their hearts and turn away. Mankind is still represented by the two thieves who died with Him. One accepted the offer of salvation, while the other hardened his heart. This Easter season, please don’t be like the one who hardened his heart but be like one of whom The Message Bible says this:

^18-20 “Come. Sit down. Let’s argue this out.”
    This is God’s Message:
“If your sins are blood-red,
    they’ll be snow-white.
If they’re red like crimson,
    they’ll be like wool.
If you’ll willingly obey,
    you’ll feast like kings.
But if you’re willful and stubborn,
    you’ll die like dogs.”
That’s right. God says so.  Isaiah 1:18-20 (MSG)

 

 

           

 

Post 70-"Darkest Hour,” the Movie—Part 2 The Spiritual Side

                                                       

                After Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem (or what we call Palm Sunday), He went to the temple:

¹⁴ The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵ But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” they were indignant.  Matt 21:14-15

            About 700 years before Jesus did this (and the other miracles that He did), the prophet Isaiah said of the above, 

⁵ Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
⁶ Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.  Isaiah 35:5-6

            Several weeks ago we watched the Oscar nominated film “Darkest Hour.” What an inspiration. Yes, this is a movie, but it is a historical drama about the early stages of World War II, just before and just after Winston Churchill became the prime minister of Great Britain. Lessons can be learned from it.

            The odds against Great Britain were overwhelming, staggeringly impossible—to think that there could ever be victory...never. In the early stages of the war, Hitler was unstoppable. Poland, Belgium, The Netherlands, and France quickly fell and Britain was about to lose almost its entire army at Dunkirk. There appeared to be no hope.

            Some who read Post 70-Part 1 were feeling they were facing odds that were totally against them, and that they needed a miracle.  Even now, several weeks later, circumstances for many may not have changed; perhaps, even gotten worse. Has the fire of the problems in your life been turned up higher and gotten hotter?  Is your financial condition working against you? Are your dreams disappearing? Are you overwhelmed by what’s happening in your life? Are the things in your life that are working against you, not your fault? Is your illness dragging on? Does God care? Does He have any answers? Is there hope? Before we look to the Scriptures and to the three Hebrew children—when they faced similar overwhelming odds—let’s look once more to Winston Churchill. What was his attitude? What did he say? What happened?

            Churchill said,

We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

            As I wrote in Part 1, many in England felt that Churchill was a failure, and rightfully so, due to past, serious, very costly mistakes he made. But the movie also accurately quotes Churchill when he said,
            Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

            Even his American friends, in the early stages of the war, turned an almost blind eye to what was happening in Europe and to Great Britain. (Have friends ever turned their backs on you?)

            How bad did Churchill have it? Let us first look at what happened at Dunkirk. The Allied armies, mostly British, were trapped on that beach. Churchill commands their rescue. How did it happen? There were not enough ships in the Navy to evacuate them, so the people of the island nation of Great Britain used small watercraft of all types—tug boats, fishing boats, sail boats, ferry boats, pleasure boats and yachts—to sail across English Channel to evacuate as many as possible. While it can be argued, I believe it was God who, among other things, caused the weather to be favorable for the troop extraction (https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/barometer/features/the-miracle-of-dunkirk  ).

            Then after Dunkirk, Hitler tried to strangle the nautical supply lines that were keeping England alive. His submarine navy sunk hundreds of ships and thousand of sailors died. But in time the odds changed in favor of England and the Allies.

            In addition, Hitler also tried to bomb Great Britain into submission. Over 40,000 civilians died during those air attacks.

            Then finally, after over two years of desperately fighting for survival, America with its manufacturing might and emaciated army and navy (at that time) entered the war, not because England needed help and Hitler was a tyrant, but because of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor.

            But they didn’t give up. The people of Great Britain did not surrender.

            Now, what do the Scriptures tell us that might be of encouragement, in addition to what we saw with Winston Churchill and the people of Great Britain...who never gave up....who never surrendered?

“Blessed [with spiritual security] is the man who believes and trusts in and relies on the Lord and whose hope and confident expectation is the Lord. “For he will be [nourished] like a tree planted by the waters, that spreads out its roots by the river; and will not fear the heat when it comes; but its leaves will be green and moist. And it will not be anxious and concerned in a year of drought nor stop bearing fruit. Jeremiah 17:7-8 AMP

            Do you remember Jeremiah, the Old Testament prophet whom God called to be His mouthpiece to the nations (Jer 1:5)?  In the book of Lamentations 3 (AMP), Jeremiah is lamenting;  sad, mournful, about the circumstances in which he finds himself. He said about his condition,   

I am [Jeremiah] the man who has seen affliction
Because of the rod of His wrath.
² He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
³ Surely He has turned His hand against me
Repeatedly all the day.
⁴ He has caused my flesh and my skin to waste away;
He has shattered my bones.
⁵ He has besieged and surrounded me with bitterness and hardship.
⁶ He has made me live in dark places
Like those who have long been dead.
⁷ He walled me in so that I cannot get out;
He has weighted down my chain.
⁸ Even when I cry out and shout for help,
He shuts out my prayer.
⁹ He has blocked my ways with cut stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
¹⁰ He is to me like a bear lying in wait,
And like a lion [hiding] in secret places.
¹¹ He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
¹² He has bent His bow
And set me as a target for the arrow.
¹³ He has caused the arrows of His quiver
To enter my inner parts.
¹⁴ I have become the [object of] ridicule to all my people,
And [the subject of] their mocking song all the day.
¹⁵ He has filled me with bitterness;
He has made me drunk with wormwood (bitterness).
¹⁶ He has broken my teeth with gravel;
He has [covered me with ashes and] made me cower in the dust.
¹⁷ My soul has been cast far away from peace;
I have forgotten happiness.
¹⁸ So I say, “My strength has perished
And so has my hope and expectation from the Lord.”

Hope of Relief in God’s Mercy (Biblical heading, not scripture about what follows)

¹⁹ Remember [O Lord] my affliction and my wandering, the wormwood and the gall (bitterness).
²⁰ My soul continually remembers them and is bowed down within me.

But this I call to mind, therefore I have hope.
²² It is because of the Lord’s lovingkindnesses that we are not consumed,
Because His [tender] compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
Great and beyond measure is Your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion and my inheritance,” says my soul;
“Therefore I have hope in Him and wait expectantly for Him.”
²⁵ The Lord is good to those who wait [confidently] for Him,
To those who seek Him [on the authority of God’s word].

            Whew! There’s an example of someone facing overwhelming odds, but never surrendering and never giving up.  God can take our worst circumstances and turn them around as in Psalm 30:11-12 NLT

¹¹ You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing.
    You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,
¹² that I might sing praises to you and not be silent.
    O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever!

            I mentioned the three Hebrew children we can read about in the book of Daniel Chapter 3 ( https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Dan+3&version=NASB ). If there are some readers who do not know who those three young men are, they are Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. The Bible tells us that they were supposed to bow down to the king. They said no. The king got mad and threw them into the fire. But the God of Creation rescued them from the fire without even the smell of smoke on their clothes.

¹⁶ Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. ^17]If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. ¹⁸ But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

¹⁹ Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath, and his facial expression was altered toward Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. He answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. ²⁰ He commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire. ²¹ Then these men were tied up in their ^[r]trousers, their coats, their caps and their other clothes, and were cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. ²² For this reason, because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace had been made extremely hot, the flame of the fire slew those men who carried up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. ²³ But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up.

²⁴ Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up in haste; he said to his high officials, “Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?” They replied to the king, “Certainly, O king.” ²⁵ He said, “Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” ²⁶ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire; he responded and said, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego came out of the midst of the fire. ²⁷ The satraps, the prefects, the governors and the king’s high officials gathered around and saw in regard to these men that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men nor was the hair of their head singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell of fire even come upon them.  Daniel 3:16-27 NASB

            Sooner or later we all face financial difficulties. Does God, through the scriptures have anything to tell us about this? Strange as it seems, Gods tells us to do the reverse of what we naturally think we should do. Money problems usually mean not enough money, yet He tells us that one of the ways to financial freedom is to give it away,

³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38 NIV

Or what about this from Malachi 3:7-12 NIV?

 ⁷ Ever since the time of your ancestors you have turned away from my decrees and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the Lord Almighty.

“But you ask, ‘How are we to return?’

⁸ “Will a mere mortal rob God? Yet you rob me.

“But you ask, ‘How are we robbing you?’

“In tithes and offerings. ⁹ You are under a curse—your whole nation—because you are robbing me. ¹⁰ Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,” says the Lord Almighty, “and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. ¹¹ I will prevent pests from devouring your crops, and the vines in your fields will not drop their fruit before it is ripe,” says the Lord Almighty. ¹² “Then all the nations will call you blessed, for yours will be a delightful land,” says the Lord Almighty.

            You might be saying to yourself, “This doesn’t make sense, give to get?” And yet, how does God answer this?

⁸ “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, “declares the Lord.
⁹ “As the heavens are higher than the earth,  so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts Isa 55:8-9 NIV

            In the beginning of this post, I referenced several scriptures about Jesus as the coming healer and what He would do; and then just a sample of what He did. Thinking of Winston Churchill and how he never gave up and encouraged the people of his country to do the same, the Biblical account of a very sick man comes to mind. In John Chapter 5 we read about the lame man, who had not been able to walk for 38 years.

5 After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ² Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda having five porches. ³ In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. ⁴ For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. ⁵ Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

⁷ The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”

⁸ Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” ⁹ And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.

And that day was the Sabbath. ¹⁰ The Jews therefore said to him who was cured, “It is the Sabbath; it is not lawful.... (NKJV)

            Does anything from the above strike you as odd? Earlier in Matthew 21 and now again in John 5, either the church or its religious leaders were against Jesus for doing good. They, basically, sadly, were willing for people to keep on suffering for the sake of tradition or religion. The life giving thing Jesus brought to the people then, and still brings to us today, is a personal relationship with Him, the Son of God, not some formalized, formatted system of religion. One of my favorite books may have an answer to this. In Francis MacNutt’s book The Nearly Perfect Crime, How the Church Almost Killed the Ministry of Healing, on the recommendation pages in the front of the book, Fr. Murray Bodo, O.P.M., he wrote,

 Though forces within and outside the churches have diminished the gift of healing, the Holy Spirit continues to cry out for Christians to reach out and touch the sick and wounded once more today. 

            I realize this post is longer than usual with lengthy sections of God’s word included. The movie “Darkest Hour” gave me no indication of Churchill’s spiritual beliefs or trust in God. His unwavering stance of never giving up, at least from the movie’s point of view, was of a man who had the guts to never give up and who put his trust in the will of people to stand with him.

            Almost universally today we have no national leaders of that stature, courage, and moral fortitude to fight on. And Church leaders of this type are few and far between. But we do have God and His word. I’m not presuming this will be easy. For those readers facing overwhelming odds, h o p e  i n  G o d.  Several times over the past few years, I felt overwhelmed. Regular readers will remember when Dana and I wrote about being in the wilderness. Back in the 1980s, although I was saved and serving God, I was homeless and slept in a borrowed, beat up, old pickup truck for awhile.  When I first got saved, I was broken hearted. But God.... (Genesis 50:20  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen+50%3A19-21&version=NKJV  )

            Remember the words of the Apostle Paul in Acts 27:25, as he was on a sinking ship in a terrible storm, with the loss of the entire cargo and all hands imminent,

²⁵ Therefore take heart, men, for I believe God that it will be just as it was told me.

           And finally in closing,  Jesus own words from Matthew 19:26 (NKJV)

²⁶ But Jesus looked at them and said to them, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

 

  

 

 

 

Post 70-“Darkest Hour,” the Movie—Part 1

            We watched the many Oscar nominated film “Darkest Hour” last night. I was inspired! Yes, this is a movie, a historical drama, but it is basically the truth about the early stages of World War II, just before and just after Winston Churchill became the prime minister of Great Britain.

            The odds against Great Britain were overwhelming, staggering, impossible—to think that there could ever be victory...never. Hitler’s new form of mechanized warfare was unstoppable. Belgium, The Netherlands, and France were falling or surrendering. Britain was about to lose its entire army at Dunkirk. Its air force was completely outnumbered by the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force. There appeared to be no hope.

            Some who read this blog today feel they are facing odds that are totally against them.

            Some who read this blog have smooth sailing in their lives...right now.

            Some of its readers are like the prime minister of Great Britain during the time that led up to the start of WWII. Neville Chamberlain will always be known as the “peace at any cost” man for trying to appease the bully, the tyrant, Adolf Hitler. He didn’t. Instead, he contributed to the rise of Hitler and his domination of Europe.

            Many of the readers are like Winston Churchill who was considered a failure due to past decisions that cost thousands of lives but who is still known today for his “never give up’ speech.

            The movie also accurately quotes Churchill when he said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

            Whatever your circumstances are today, good or bad, easy or overwhelming, today or tomorrow go to On Demand or Redbox or Net Flicks and watch this movie. It will inspire or prepare almost every watcher.