OPINION — The National Day of Prayer is May 7 — a day we ask for miracles. When people say, “miracles don’t happen,” I think of Dunkirk.
In late May 1940, Britain faced catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of Allied troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk with German armor closing in. With the British army encircled, defeat seemed certain. Winston Churchill wasn’t known as a religious man, but King George VI saw the nation’s need clearly and called for a National Day of Prayer. The British people responded and churches filled to overflow.
Then came what historians still struggle to explain: the German advance halted at the very moment Britain knelt in prayer, buying a narrow window to form a defensive perimeter. A wall of thick clouds and rain repeatedly blunted air attacks. Smoke drifted like a providential screen over evacuation routes. And the English Channel, normally rough, turned strangely calm as hundreds of small rescue boats streamed across like a lifeline.
