How are YOU living the dash?

Today I had a "moment." Our lives are filled with so many "moments." Sometimes we miss them. Sometimes we experience them. As we were driving to our concert I was listening to a song about a guy who died. As I was listening I began thinking of the people I love who have left this world due to sickness or age. During this moment we drove by a large graveyard. The graveyard was completely packed with tombstones and freshly cut flowers. The reality is we are all going to be there one day. I began thinking about the years on the tombstones and the dashes that separates the birth and the death of people's loved ones. That dash represents our lives. That dash represents everything we accomplish here on earth. That dash is how we will be remembered.

How are you living the dash?

We went to Auschwitz today. It was a large concentration camp during WW2. It was heart breaking to walk through those gates that said "work gives freedom." So many things blew my mind. They had standing stalls to punish the prisoners. Four men in one small stall would have to stand all day and all night. Up to ten nights for punishment. Can you imagine that? Standing and sitting in a small space where four people can barely move? They'd have to sleep standing up and then get up for work the next morning. Absolutely ridiculous.

We walked through the courtyard to see the wall of death where many were executed with a bullet in the back of the head. 80% of the people who arrived at this camp was killed within the first couple of hours. They were told to go take showers and get washed up but the showers were not water. They were toxic gas. It is heart breaking when you see innocent men, women and children walking towards these camps... clueless that they are about to get executed for no reason. The camp was surrounded by barbwire fences with 6000 volts of electricity. There was no freedom like the sign mentioned on the top of the entrance.

The camp would take pictures of every prisoner who entered. This began to get too complicated so they created tattoos with numbers on every prisoners forearm; however, there were 40,000 pictures of prisoners that were ordered to be destroyed. The guards hired two Polish men to destroy all the pictures. These two men actually hid all the pictures in the Chimneys. During one part of our tour we got to walk down a very narrow hallway with hundreds of pictures on both sides of these prisoners. These authentic pictures had not only the names of the prisoners but also the date they arrived and the date they left (died). It broke my heart to see the faces of these poor innocent people. To see those dashes between the dates that really didn't separate a significant space of time. Some men only lasted 18 days. The average was a few months depending on one's health.

I've been having pretty bad stomach pains the past few days and some bad back and neck pains from a car accident years ago. Suddenly as I walked those campgrounds my issues didn't really seem to be as big of a deal as they were when I first arrived. I realized all over again in that "moment" that I am so blessed and highly favored. My freedom through Christ was revealed to me all over again. I am so thankful. My pains, my suffering, my hurts are insignificant. God has been so good to us. We need to realize it. We need to thank Him. He is good.

Time to light up the mood with my "PS" section.

Post Script:

1) Here is a fun fact. While I "live the dash" here in Poland I learned that you have to pay to use the public bathroom. I don't remember how many times I held it in so far.

2) The street light goes from Red to Yellow then Green. Why is that? Red means stop. Yellow means slow down? Green means go? So when it turns yellow I guess you slowly start going?

3) There are many street signs with Red lines that cross them. For example there is a silhouette of a city and a red line that crosses it. At first I thought the sign ment "There was once a city and now its gone" but that is defiantly not what it means. It means the end of the city limits. Slow down is basically what it means.

4) The toilet paper in people's homes are scented. They all smell absolutely amazing. They all have pretty flowers and are in pretty colors. It's kinda weird. The public bathrooms are opposite. They are rough paper towel. They are brown. And they smell awful. It almost feels like 600 grit sand paper.

5) People smoke inside. Restaurants. Malls. It's normal. It's the cool thing to do I guess? Not really. But some people here think so.


That's enough fun facts for now. I only have 35 minutes left on my internet card that I purchased here at my hotel. It is time for me to sign off and use the rest tomorrow.

Goodnight from Poland!

Andrewm.