(Clearly) I'm Not Always Perfect

I had one of the coolest Saturdays I've had in a very long time. This morning, I was finally able to catch up on a (little) bit of sleep and enjoy a slow morning. It's so cheesy, but when I take the time to realize where I am, I smile :) In the afternoon, all the girls headed downtown. We grabbed lunch at the National Museum of American History, then did a tour of the Holocaust Museum after. Later on, I wandered around the mall, quickly went through a Smithsonian, and wandered around Colombia Heights with Brenda. In Colombia Heights,we eventually ended up getting Starbucks (thanks Daddy!...i used a coupon :)

The bricks in the picture with my feet are bricks that were taken from the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII and brought over to the Holocaust Museum as part of "The Final Solution" exhibit. It was insane walking on those bricks.

Needless to say, my Saturday gets an A+. Being able to wander around the city was so cool! I love not being rushed, and knowing that I'll be around for this summer to see the sights we haven't gone to so far.


The second picture in this post is a sample of the shoes that were worn by Jews who were carted to concentration camps then gassed. I couldn't even fit the whole room in my camera, it was too large. And this is only a sample, each pair of shoes representing a Jew who died.

My "thought" for the day is from the Holocaust Museum. I've been to the Holocaust Museum a couple of times, so I had an idea of what i was getting myself into. However, it's big enough that each time I go, I know that I'll see something new that I hadn't noticed before.

Today what I noticed was the Nazi's (hang in there...I've always known they existed). What I really mean is that I realized their evil and their horror in a way that I had never realized it before.

As I began to read the process that Hitler went through to bring the Nazi's to power, I was filled with an overwhelming anger. Reading the propaganda, and seeing the actual tools that the German's used to define "The Jewish Race" I couldn't help but feel angry towards the absurdity of the anti-semitism that was so common in Germany.

As my compassion for the Jews in Europe strengthened, and my anger towards the Nazi's grew, my next thoughts turned towards God. I didn't feel the typical "How could you God?" Instead my thoughts became, "How could my God love the Nazi's?"

It is easy for me to see how he could be sad for the Jewish people, the Gypsies, the homosexuals and everyone else forced into a concentration camp. That is his creation, formed in his image, being abused and destroyed. Whether they loved him back or not, I can wrap my mind around the way that God would love those who were broken during WWII.

As for my question, I don't have an answer. As the museum continued, videos were shown of Medical Experiments on humans, and Death Squads being carried out. At one point, I walked through a train cart used to transport prisoners. The next minute, I stood next to actual sleeping barracks that had been shipped over from Auschwitz. As the Holocaust became a reality, my perception of the Nazi's did too.

My immediate reaction is that they are monsters. It is so hard for me to see them as humans. On the other hand, I know that God loves everyone. I don't understand it. It doesn't make sense to me, and I don't have an answer to my question. I know that he has a love for his creation that is unconditional. I also know that his heart breaks at our fallen actions. Reconciling the way that God can truly "love the sinner, hate the sin" is something I'm still trying to work through.

As for tonight, I know that he loves me. I also know that he was hurt as he was a witness to every death that happened in Europe during WWII. The only conclusion I can come to, is that God's heart broke during WWII, and he helped my heart break a little today. But regardless of all of this, he still loves, even when we don't know how.