This Day will Live in Infamy

Yesterday, December seventh, my dad asked me at the dinner table,
"Do you know what today is?"
I shrugged. "Uh, today is today", was my less than intelligent answer.
"Start listing off what today is"
"Tuesday"
"Yessss..."
"December seventh"
"And?"
" I dunno."
"What happened today?"
He let me sit there with my half eaten burrito, thinking hard about what happened. It was driving me nuts, so I cheated and looked at our calender, walked back to the dinner table, and announced:

"Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese bombers"

 

I was pretty ashamed that although doing a study in WW2 not to long ago,  I did not remember. In my defense, I can remember events, but I am terrible at dates. 

Later, my Father played a radio recording on his cellphone, from December eighth, 1941. It was Franklin Roosevelt's declaration of  war against Japan. Here is a bit of it:

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan... 
....In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island...
...As Commander in Chief of the army and navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense..."

It felt a little odd, listening to fuzzy radio waves in a modern home, on a modern device. I tried to imagine what it was like for the families that had a loved one in the Naval forces, or simply someone who lived in the United States, dreading this war and concerned greatly about how it would turn out. And it got me to thinking about the Atom bomb:

 

What if it had been completed sooner? Could thousands of American lives been saved?

What if it had taken longer to complete, or had never been invented? How many lives would have been lost? How much longer would the war have lasted

It all goes to show that God chose just the right time for it to be invented, completed, and dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Why not sooner? Why not later? And a bigger question of: 

 why did God allow it to happen at all? ( click here to see my answer to that)

What do you think?

In Christ, 

Jillian