On April 1, 1933, shortly after coming to power in Germany, the Nazis held a boycott of all Jewish businesses. It was the first small persecution of many to come. But too many mothers and fathers who had talked to their kids about doing the right thing simply went along with it.
Not everyone, of course. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s ninety-nine-year-old grandmother, for instance. On that day, she was out shopping and she refused to be told whose businesses she could support. She ignored or dodged the Nazi troops stationed in front of stores and shopped wherever she liked. Their grandmother “marching past Nazi gorillas” came to be seen in the Bonhoeffer family as “an embodiment of the values they sought to live by.”
That embodiment wasn’t lost on Dietrich, who ten years later would lose his life plotting to assassinate Hitler. Even though he was a pastor, even though he had plenty of opportunities to escape Germany and live in peace and freedom in London or America, he stayed. His grandmother’s example guided him, showed him how to live by his values.
Let the same be true for you and your children, whatever the future holds, big or small.