At 103 years old and a survivor of Auschwitz’s horrors, Ella Blumenthal is seated in front of a packed auditorium. She beams her smile as laughter rolls across the audience in response to her sharp sense of humour. The audience is enraptured as Ella shares snippets of her life, from the cutting loss of all her family to the building of her new life and future. She gives God the glory and then shares one message – don’t cling to the past, but “go forward and upward”. This is incredible, considering what she has endured. It’s this that enabled her to raise a family filled with hope, not anger and pain. It’s this that causes her at 103 to be full of life and love. It’s this that God instructed us to do thousands of years ago – “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19). Hanging onto the pains of the past binds us to them. God offers us release from our past, a new thing, a new hope, a new life. As Ella put it, “Go forward and upward”. The key to forward is not behind, it’s above. Don’t look back; look Up to God. Open Bible – http://bit.ly/isa43v18-19, https://bit.ly/Share2Friends
