Saturday, June 15, 2013
Evidence Not Seen
While surfing for material on scripture memorization, I read an off handed coment, which went something like this. Darlene Rose was glad she had memorized so much scripture. And that is all it said, well this peaked my "cat killing" curiosity and I Googled Darlene Deibler Rose. Up popped this book along with a half dozen other web sites. On some of the sites you can read excerpts of this book, which I did, weting my appeite for more. I promptly ordered the book on amazon, which I am really glad I did. This is an amazing story of a young missionary woman forced to endure the horriably ordeals of a Japanese World War II prisoner of war camp. Her faith being tested, almost beyond belief at the hands of a sadisticaly keeper. At 6'4" 250 lbs I have never been accussed of being whimpy, yet as I read this story the words blured on the page as I wept reading this faith strenghtening story.
Romans 8:17 says we are fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we might be glorified with him. Glorified she is for the suffering she endured, altought Darlene suffered so much, she never lost sight of why she was there, to be a good solider for Christ. And a Solider she was, standing in front of the comander of the camp, a man who she had seen beat men and women to near death, who was breaking the news to her of her husbands death, who had died some three months prior, in a prisoner of war camp for the males. Mr, Yamaji consoled her by telling her she was still young and when the war was over, she would be able to remarry, and live a good life. Darlene asks Mr. Yamaji for premission to speak with him, being granted permission, she tells him about the hope she has in Christ, and that God put her there, in that camp,at that time to share Christ with him. The nugget of Gold, I was looking for, was when Darlene tells of when, her Bible is taken away, and how God uses the scripture she had memorized as a child, and even during her imprisonment, to give her spiritual food. Read this book, you won't be able to put it down.
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Thank you so much for sharing this book and Darlene's story! I just finished reading "Evidence Not Seen" and before that I also watched the youtube video of Darlene's personal testimony.
ReplyDeleteI needed to read Darlene's story...I needed to see our Heavenly Father through her eyes. Darlene experienced terrible things and my heart ached for her as I read and listened to her story, I could not keep from crying...but through it all Darlene learned to trust her Heavenly Father; she learned that His love does not change though our life circumstances do. At the same time it was not as though she was some "super Christian", she struggled and cried and questioned, and God held her even when her faith trembled. She was a woman of great faith not because her faith was great, but because her Heavenly Father was great! That is encouraging for me because I can completely relate because I am so weak. I was also struck by Darlene's love for Jesus. As she spoke you could just feel that she loved Jesus so much, and she was so REAL about her faith. You also see the great importance for memorizing Scripture because Darlene could never have imagined as a girl (as she was learning different verses in the Bible) that one day she would be a POW and without her Bible.
So I am challenged to be in God's Word, hiding it in my heart. I am also struck with the fact that to know God so deeply and beautifully as Darlene, we must go through the "fire". Not all of us will go through the same things, but whatever God brings into our lives we can be sure that His purpose is to draw us closer and closer to Himself.
This is definitely a must read!