Between Shades of Gray is a book I recently read that is such a powerful story I had to write about it. Its about a girl named Lina and her family back in 1941, she lived in Lithuania. Did you know that the prisons and concentration camps for the Jews were not the only type of wrongful slavery going on? The Soviets came in to Lithuania and Latvia and imprisoned families just as Hitler did the Jews. Theo only difference was Stalin and the Soviets hid this from the rest of the world, including the United States. The men were separated from their families and sent to prisons, and the families were stuck on trains with what belongings they could carry for days and days living off rations and what food they were able to bring with them. The outside of the trains were marked "prostitutes and criminals." There were no doctors to heal the sick or broken bones, and there wasn't enough food to go around, but the soviet guards were eating like Kings. They were then sent to something similar to a labor camp and if you were unable to work you did not eat. Some were then transferred to the Artic where they were forced to build huts out of drift wood or anything they could find, and were not given any heat. The story is of how Lina survives and the steps she takes to protect her brother and friends she has made along the way.
It really made me grateful for everything I have here, the luxuries of just being able to eat a home cooked meal. We all take so much for granted these days, and complain when our power goes out because we can't watch tv or charge our cell phones. These people had nothing to eat but bread, if that, and had no forms of communication with the outside world, they didn't know if their families, fathers, husbands, brothers were alive, or if they themselves were even going to make it through the night. It really makes you step back and look at what you have and say Thank you Lord for blessing me in so many ways, because honestly we are blessed more then we could ever imagine, even if we don't have all of the expensive clothes or gadgets.
So from my heart to yours, go to your local library or bookstore and get this book. Read it, and remember that you are blessed.
