Sobering Up

I feel like I need to acknowlege my lack of posting to this blog--have felt bad about it...so now I will put blogger guilt behind me and get to the main task at hand.
If you've been reading this for very long, you know that one of the ways I think God speaks to my heart is through movies. On my birthday, this last Tuesday, I saw something I'll never, ever forget--so stirring and shocking that I'm not sure I'd ever be ready to see it again. The film is Sophie Scholl, The Final Days, and it tells the true story of a 21-year-old German college student who followed the dictates of her conscience, along with her brother, to resist the Nazis and spread anti-war flyers around her campus. After she's caught, Sophie skillfully uses alibis to try and avoid punishment for herself and her family. She claims to be "apolitical." Watching her lie, I longed to see the Nazis believe her and set her free. I don't know that I've ever rooted so much for someone who's trying to escape through lies as I did watching this film. To me, it seemed like the right course of action in the face of such atrocity as the Nazi regime. In my business, I know that our workers are called into government offices at times--on occasion, they're asked point blank, "Are you missionaries?" This becomes more of an ethical problem if, when you're home, you refer to yourself and let others refer to you as a "missionary." Some people rationalize their answer of "No" with the belief that God has indeed called them to their country of ministry, and He wouldn't want their response to get in the way of His work. In the Muslim world, "missionary" is a loaded term--some think of them as Westerners who pay people to become Christians and divorce their culture, giving up their morality. When put into those terms, our workers may feel they're not lying by saying, "No,we're not missionaries." I'm not saying that all our workers respond the same way when faced with what seems to be a choice between lying and remaining on the field (or staying out of jail)--I'm just pointing out some of what I've heard goes on and hoping anyone who reads this will begin to wrestle with the issues of "How/when is it acceptable before God to resist an oppressive government official using lies?" and "What honors God the most?"
Anyway, back to the movie...When Sophie realizes "the jig is up," she finally confesses and ends up making a passionate defense for her actions against the Nazis, revealing her faith in a higher justice than her government currently provides and warning against the impending judgment her accusers will soon face. She acts as bravely in the face of death as I would hope that I would--if God ever allows me the privilege of suffering that way for His name.
Three days after seeing the film, I am still shaken and haunted by the moment of her death. By the look on her face as she realizes what's the Nazis are quickly going to do to destroy her body. It might last 10 seconds between the time she enters the room and sees the tool of exocution and her actual death. It's that fast, and I will never forget it as long as I live. Death is not clean, painless, and honorable--it's messy and humiliating, but God gave grace to Sophie (according to historical reports, not just the movie) to endure this final suffering before she met Him. When we stumbled out of the theatre, Katherine and I were both pretty upset. Later that day, I resolved in my heart to no longer take her to films in which "surprises" like that ending can come up and haunt her--I've needed to be a better protector of her heart for a long time, and it took a seemingly crystal clean movie like Sophie Scholl to show me that my ignorance when going into films or turning on the TV is no excuse. If I'm intending to show something to my wife, I need to know what it is I'm showing her, rather than leaving her at the mercy of entertainment producers and trying to point at them as if it's their fault. I've told Katherine that, as she's an adult, I think she should decide to see what she feels morally right about seeing. But when I take her to see something or flip on the telly while she's there, I believe God sees me as the responsible party for violating her heart. Hope that makes sense.