The Power of Love

He was 16 years old and ready to fight. Like so many others, he was proud of his country, proud of his family, proud of his heritage. His two older brothers were in the war. The oldest moving up the ranks to general in the army, the second oldest part of the prestigious fighter pilots of the air force. He admired his brother and wanted to be a pilot, but medical conditions kept him from the front lines and he spent his days maintaining aircraft rather than flying them. He was ready to die for his country even so.

At 16, what can you really know of the politics of warfare? Perhaps you catch snippets of your parents’ conversations, read an article in the newspaper, listen to a radio broadcast. But the truth behind the stories is never simple; all sides of war have their reasons and their propagandas. What you do know of war at that age are the terrifying images of destruction and death; the anguished cries of your neighbors, friends and family who have lost loved ones; your own loss of innocence when your brother dies in a blaze of war glory.

As the tide of war turned, his oldest brother encouraged him to flee with his mother and sisters to a safe place, away from the military bases and big cities; he could protect them there, his older brother argued. He refused. So when the bomb dropped on the civilians – including his family – in that “safe” place, he was angry. It was an anger that would last for 70 years, simmering in his heart always as he married and raised a family of his own.

When she was 17, his daughter decided to become a Christian and follow the hateful Christian God who had allowed so many women and children and old men to die horrific deaths. Later his daughter would move to that enemy country with her children and earn a college degree. She and her husband divorced. All of these actions increased the anger already dwelling in his heart. When she remarried a man from that evil place, disowning her was a natural consequence. He quietly added the pain of her loss to the pain of losing his family in the war. Another reason to disparage the enemy.

Love, though, works in strange and powerful ways. His daughter, with the help of a faith-filled community, managed to raise her three children and find a true love. Her husband, a man with an open heart and a generous spirit, supported her as she reached out to her mother and her father, praying for reconciliation.

A glimmer of hope came when her mother convinced her father to let the grandchildren come and visit. They traveled across the ocean and the grandchildren were reunited with their grandparents. The daughter and husband, though, were not allowed to stay in the house that first time. Slowly, surely, the gentle and kind man from across the ocean began to melt the hurting heart of his father-in-law. Was it possible that not everyone from that hated country was as bad as war had taught him?

When his granddaughter, whom he loved, married, he offered to have a traditional wedding reception for them in her native land. The young groom was quiet, respectful and genuinely in love with his granddaughter, working hard to learn the language and the customs of his new bride. The man’s heart softened even more and the anger and hatred in his heart melted away. His daughter would later tell the groom’s mother that it was a miracle, her father’s change of heart. Both women cried at the beauty of it all.

78 years have passed since the bombing of Pearl Harbor; 75 years have passed since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world still suffers from destructive hate and violence. One man, whose life was shattered by a bomb, discovered that love can overcome hate and that men and women are not defined by where they live, but by how they live. We cannot change history, but with love we can transform the world, making today and the future better for us all.