Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: BOYCOTT (11/01/18)
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TITLE: Resilient | Previous Challenge Entry
By Marlene Bonney
11/05/18 -
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It was so hard to believe the decline of the country’s morality over the past couple of years. Under the governing hierarchy of a regime that held atheism as its god and bowed to liberal’s political agendas with deep pockets and even deeper ulterior motives, the country’s leaders held nothing sacred. The power mongers were insidious in their objectives. They began in the public school systems to censure all religious references from textbooks by editing the writings of historical figures known for their faith or anything else connected to religion. Computer systems were censured from all religious web site searches, and forbidden topics erased.
It was inevitable that the churches became tainted with ungodliness, as well. . .
“Glorified country clubs is what they’ve become, Auntie,” Rachel automatically lowering her voice, “Without the Scriptures they’re like empty tombs.”
The Bible, God’s Holy Word, was now banned from all homes in this, once Godly, country. Gladys & Fred Ferguson, friends from two streets over, had their home raided only a week ago. Rumors were rife and varied, ranging from ‘they were fined $1,000 and given a stiff warning’ to ‘they were taken away and have never been seen since.’ Some said a Bible had been confiscated hidden under a mattress; others declared there was a forgotten plaque on an attic wall with the Joshua 24:15 verse: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve;. . .as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Aunt Ethel, a stalwart supporter of their resistance movement, had been sharing Psalms she had memorized as a young girl. Hearing her quote the Word comforted her listeners like hot chocolate on a winter day. Tammy, her next-door neighbor, contributed by closing her eyes and reverently reciting the entire chapter of Philippians 4. Ralph, the upstairs renter and a former seminary student, knew large portions of Biblical Paul’s letters to the saints in Ephesus and Corinth, words spilling off his tongue like the refreshing waterfall over by Old Mill Creek. The listeners gathered and soaked up their quotes like dry sponges.
Other rebel factions were springing up throughout the country, as stubborn as the proverbial daisy breaking its way through a sidewalk crack. There were quilting circles devoted to writing hand-me-downed memorized verses on pieces of cloth and tucking them beneath the fabric squares of their creations. Woodworkers and artisans carved and stenciled the Beatitudes, the Ten Commandments, and Biblical parables, cleverly overlaying them and making them undetectable by the police scanners that only recognized paper. Christian parents trained up their children through bedtime stories of Moses and Jonah and Noah. And, in spite of all the governmental mandates and prohibitions, God’s Word flourished, blossoming and buried in the hearts and minds of His followers.
Rachel, and thousands upon thousands like her, refused to give up their faith, defying the country’s worldly stance to squash out religion and Christianity. Underground railroads, long deserted, were re-opened and the undetected Bibles that had been successfully saved from backyard graves and rotting barn lofts were smuggled back into homes that had already been searched. Many non-believers were drawn back to spiritual roots as they had unsuccessfully tried to live as if God did not matter, joining the movements and becoming Christians themselves.
Oh, it was a dangerous game they were playing. Like the saints of old, some were persecuted, many were punished, others were martyred. But God’s Word could not be vanquished. Rather, it prospered and thrived until the present regime was eventually overthrown and freedom of religion reestablished itself. . .
Rachel and her friends learned a valuable lesson and are reading God’s Word daily, memorizing as they go.
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