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Good morning. The Dunkirk evacuation, which ended on this day in 1940, closed a disastrous start to the Second World War.Ìý The defeat of the allied armies was humiliating but also costly. Tens of thousands of our best professional troops had been killed or taken prisoner and huge amounts of the army’s best equipment had been abandoned.

And yet, 78 years on people still remember it with pride.Ìý And it’s easy to see why.Ìý Despite the losses, 338,226 allied soldiers were rescued.Ìý It’s perhaps no surprise that was described at the time as a ‘miracle of deliverance’.

It also had a surprising effect – rather than destroying the nation’s morale it actually seemed to boost it.Ìý It produced Winston Churchill’s ‘fight them on the beaches’ speech which galvanised the war effort into a new and better focus.
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But one of the most celebrated aspects of the Dunkirk story is that the evacuation was only possible because hundreds of what are known as the ‘little ships’ joined in: around 850 mostly non- naval boats – from pleasure steamers and fishing boats to private yachts.Ìý Extraordinary things accomplished with very ordinary resources.

The Bible is full of unlikely heroes – Abraham, Moses, David, Ruth and Paul.Ìý All people who defied their limitations and surprised themselves by what they achieved.Ìý Thankfully few of us will ever find ourselves in a situation as deadly and horrific as Dunkirk. But none of us knows what we are truly capable of until we are tested. When we meet challenges every one of us could astonish ourselves by discovering strength we never knew we had.

Father, when things get difficult for us help us to look back at events like Dunkirk and draw hope and inspiration from how the most ordinary resources can be used to produce the most extraordinary results.Ìý Amen

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