Not your average throwback Thursday...

Today is Thursday, and everyone knows what that means! Our newsfeeds are going to be

flooded with selfies of the past, pictures of long-lost friends, and relatives

near and dear to our hearts. Usually, you would see that from me, but not this

time. This past week has brought a journey into self-awareness that I want to

share.

This past week, I took a break from Facebook to figure things out and to try to

straighten out my life a little bit. After graduating college, everyone has

been asking what I’m going to do next. I tried figuring that out, but that isn’t

something that happens overnight. I also got a lot of reading done. Since

college started, I’ve done a lot of reading on the Holocaust. Thanks to a few

research papers on the evolution of Jewish music during this time, I’ve done my

fair share of reading into the history of the whole event. I’ve had this desire

to dig deeper into this dark time in history to answer a few questions I’ve had.

How could a group of people be so hateful to try and destroy another group of

people like this? More importantly, how could it have gone so far before it was

ended? After much searching, I can’t find an answer. However, I found something

that I did not expect to find: Hope.

Never have I felt so disgusted from reading the stories I did.

But, never have I seen so much HOPE and FAITH from reading the stories I did.

“I believed that God was watching the indifference of the world, and that God, Himself, was brokenhearted as well.”

There were stories and images that would break your heart. There were even accounts

of people praying to God and believing he would save them from death at the

last second, even as they were choking on their final breaths. One survivor

wrote that there was such a peace and calmness in the eyes of many of these

people, even though they knew what was coming.

I couldn’t believe it. In a place that I would consider a “Hell on Earth”, there

was PEACE in the eyes of these people. I was choking back tears as I was

reading these autobiographies from the horrors described. I was also choking

back tears from the faith I saw unfolding, even after all of the torture and

pain they went through.

“They could break my body, but they couldn’t break my faith.”

Through this, I learned about a vibrant culture ripped to shreds by HATE. The only

thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing. We all

need to do our part in the world by spreading love, one person at a time. Whether

it is at work, in the store, or just walking down the street, we need to show

LOVE. No matter how much HATE someone spews at you, responding in LOVE does much

more than responding back with hate. Through all of this, we ALL need to show

LOVE. It’s not something I’m great at by any means. Showing love means smiling

at people, taking an interest in their day, even just responding to a text from

them. I’m sorry for the downer, but this is something that has been weighing on

my heart and I needed to share.

In short, I want to apologize to everyone I have neglected to respond to, to everyone I have snapped at because I “didn’t have my coffee

yet”, and to everyone that I’ve just lost touch with. I love each and every one of you and I will make it up.

My challenge to you today is to show someone some LOVE, even if it’s just smiling at them. Thank you for reading my somewhat scrambled thoughts for the day. Have a great day and show some love :)

Also, if you want to listen to a beautiful piece of music, check out "Quartet for the End of Time" by Olivier Messiaen. It's a beautiful piece of music composed by a French soldier, imprisoned in a German POW camp for clarinet, piano, cello, and violin.