The Final Pages

Background Story: 

As a child, the lives of heroic men and women of faith in the face of intense persecution inspired me.  I often wondered what I would do if I was ever faced with the same situation.  If someone was torturing me and telling me to deny my Lord, what would I do?  

When I became a teacher, and I would ask my students "If you could change one thing in History, what would it be?" Often, I would hear something like, "I would kill Hilter so he couldn't kill all those people." or some other equally bold statement.  

A few years back, I was able to read Eric Metaxas's biography of Deitrich Bonhoeffer.  In reading that history, I again saw that Germany was not lost by grand battles, but moment by moment as the German people thought, "he couldn't really mean to do ______" until it was too late.  I too had bold plans of what I would do if I lived in 1930s Germany.  But one day, I was told that if I didn't agree with something, I could walk out that day, no judgement - and I stayed sitting.  I kept saying "okay" to decisions I wasn't comfortable with and that I saw hurting myself and my students.  

It was out of that realization that came this piece.

The Final Pages

written by Emily F. Steele 18th of August, 2021 

Standing at the final pages

Holding back a scream 

Don’t you see their faces? 

Can’t you hear their pleas? 

If you could change one moment 

If History you could write

What would be the moment you would make alright? 

Fast to make an answer

Swift comes a reply. 

Yet in this moment -

Apathy.

Don’t let them die in vain

Value their precious blood

Spilled on the soil of history 

Are you passing o’er the battlefield? 

Trampling on your fathers

Turning your back on your mothers

Deaf to the cries of your sisters? 

Blind to need of your brothers? 

See their pleading eyes

Hear their battle cry

Calling you to arms 

Calling you to die

Handing you the standard 

Handing you the pen

I thought I’d be so brave

I thought I picked them up

Yet stumbling I falter 

Then looking up I see 

I’m face to face with cowardice

And the men I’ve come to hate

With all those choices I would undo

I find I’m nothing more.

But listen- is that a trumpet call?

I see a hand reaching out 

Pulling me up from my fall

Pick back up the standard

Pick back up the pen

It’s not too late for bravery 

Before the story’s end. 

Let us be worthy to fill the final pages with the passion with which history was won.