By David Bragg
Virginia was born into an upper-class family in Baltimore and educated in elite schools where she studied French, Italian, and German. While working as a clerk for the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland she was involved in a shooting accident that lead to the amputation of her left leg.
With the invasion of France by Germany, Virginia Hall began her spy work in France to build a resistance force to augment the Allied forces they hoped would arrive. Patiently she labored undercover and amid scrutiny of enemy forces. After months of effort her ring of supporters was compromised by a Nazi spy. Many were arrested and killed. Virginia barely got out alive.
Still, she was determined to return to France, which she was eventually allowed to do. This time she worked with greater caution (and at great risk to her life and health) patiently built a new network of resistance which many historians have said helped change the course of WW II (www.npr.org).
We can so easily be guilty of using a watered-down version of “patience.” It may be nothing more than sitting in stalled traffic or being stranded on hold, again, on an important phone call. Patience, in the New Testament, involves a determination to weather sacrifice and suffering to attain a worthwhile goal:¬ eternal life with God in Heaven. With that goal in sight, patience is needed until victory is realized.
Virginia was born into an upper-class family in Baltimore and educated in elite schools where she studied French, Italian, and German. While working as a clerk for the American Embassy in Warsaw, Poland she was involved in a shooting accident that lead to the amputation of her left leg.
With the invasion of France by Germany, Virginia Hall began her spy work in France to build a resistance force to augment the Allied forces they hoped would arrive. Patiently she labored undercover and amid scrutiny of enemy forces. After months of effort her ring of supporters was compromised by a Nazi spy. Many were arrested and killed. Virginia barely got out alive.
Still, she was determined to return to France, which she was eventually allowed to do. This time she worked with greater caution (and at great risk to her life and health) patiently built a new network of resistance which many historians have said helped change the course of WW II (www.npr.org).
We can so easily be guilty of using a watered-down version of “patience.” It may be nothing more than sitting in stalled traffic or being stranded on hold, again, on an important phone call. Patience, in the New Testament, involves a determination to weather sacrifice and suffering to attain a worthwhile goal:¬ eternal life with God in Heaven. With that goal in sight, patience is needed until victory is realized.
- David Bragg serves as one of the ministers
at the Northwest Church of Christ in Greensboro, NC and is
co-editor of BulletinGold. He may be contacted through the
congregation's website: http://www.nwchurchofchrist.com/
or his blog: http://davidbragg.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment