No One is Forgotten

No One is Forgotten

Frances Gifford was what many would consider a “B” actress in Hollywood, during the World War II era. Pretty and statuesque, she appeared in several films, including a role in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” with Jimmy Stewart.

Married from 1938 to 1942, Ms. Gifford apparently never had children.

In 1948, she was involved in a car accident and suffered severe head injuries. A fan site online tells us that she was not heard from publicly until 1983; she’d been placed in a state mental hospital for 20 years! Upon release, she found work at the Pasadena public library, and she died in 1994.

One wonders if anyone visited her between 1958 and 1978. What did she think of President Kennedy’s assassination? Did she watch the variety television programs of the late 60s and 70s? How was it she was able to recover?

I mention this woman because to most, she is “forgotten.” Thousands of actors worked in Hollywood in those years and thousands of films were made. Frances Gifford is probably remembered by a hardcore film buff like Martin Scorcese, but that’d be about it.

The point I’d like to make is that, although I don’t know her religious persuasion, Frances Gifford was not forgotten by her Creator. We can only speculate about the depth of God’s love.

Whenever I see a person like Frances Gifford, I think of Israel. Tiny, constantly besieged Israel. On their own. Individual Jews have been “forgotten” for centuries, and many of them died alone or in mass graves. Israel herself has been abandoned almost countless times, most recently in our era, such as during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War. Sure, America intervened in ’73 (if you ever want to be inspired and understand the supernatural nature of things, read an account of Nixon ordering airlifts to Israel, over the objections of his advisors!)

Today of course, Israel has been abandoned by the nations, who grovel before the desert sheikhs, who sit on oil coveted by thirsty superpowers.

But remember what the Lord said in Isaiah 49:16: “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”

What a lovely reality. Perhaps one can be forgiven for imagining the Lord turning His hands over, looking at “Israel” set permanently there. Although it is dreadfully difficult for people to understand how God could allow evil, we know from Scripture that even in the darkest days, the Jews were not forgotten by God.

As Benjamin Netanyahu makes the highest-stakes decisions every day, we see this week that the Jewish state is being threatened diplomatically and militarily. George Mitchell, Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy — an utter failure and complete waste of taxpayer money — has announced that at the proper time, he will set a deadline for the Israelis and Palestinians to reach an agreement. Already we know that the Palestinians are roaming through the West Bank, setting up institutions for governing, so that at the appointed time, they can simply declare a state.

Mitchell compares this effort at peace-making to his 1998 deal brokered between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. As if there’s any comparison. In the Middle East, he is dealing with unreachable Islamists who have sworn to destroy Israel.

Then we have Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah threatening to sink Israeli ships in the event of war. What a punk.

So Israel is in a dangerous position and many Israelis probably feel that they’ve been forgotten. Boy, if they only knew.

All this of course applies to us as individuals. If God has kept Israel all this time — and He clearly has — then He is well able to keep you to the end.

I believe that with all my heart, soul, and spirit
jim@prophecymatters.com