Unexpected Inspiration
On June 1, Bill Towey was still caring for his wounded comrades. He was now with the last British forces defending the shrinking beachhead at Dunkirk. To honor fallen comrades, an officer in his unit held a hurried and informal funeral service for a score of soldiers laid out in rows in the darkness of the night. With no hope of conducting a proper Christian service, the officer gave his best effort, reading by flashlight. He chose a reassuring passage from Revelation:
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
—Revelation 21:4 (KJV)
At this point in the long and harrowing campaign, these men had begun to feel as if hope was gone. Weeks of pain, sorrow, and death had begun to eat into their souls. John’s vision of a New Jerusalem brought hope and a spiritual uplift to those gathered in the darkness. In Towey’s words: “It would be difficult to convey the great impact of those words, in those special circumstances, made upon a very impressionable and religious 19 year old lad, but the scene has remained indelibly impressed on my memory in the 63 years and more since it happened and, no doubt, will continue to do so until my dying day.”20
God doesn’t promise to shield us from trouble. He does promise that he will be with us through every trial. There is always comfort and hope to be found in his Word, no matter how dire our crisis might be.