Tonight I find myself thinking of Africa. Of Congo. The people I met there. The strongest people I've ever come across. Women who were brutally raped as a tool of war used to devastate the communities of Congo. Women who experience serious health problems and had or are still waiting for reparative surgery as a result. Who suffer from the HIV/AIDS their rapists left them with. Who live ostracized from their communities and even separated from their families due to the stigma rape carries in their culture. I felt utterly weak in their presence as I listened to their unimaginable stories. They had suffered so much trauma, experienced horrors I can't even imagine. And continued to live every day of their life with the haunting memories of it all. Even the thought was devastating.
Yet, they were vibrantly alive. Full of hope for a better future for their country, their children, themselves. Only loving towards those who brutally raped them and forever changed their lives. Wholeheartedly trusting in God to bring peace to their community. Faithful in his ability to bring justice and redemption. Strong in every sense of the word. Carrying on, looking forward, finding purpose in their past, sharing their experience with other women to show solidarity. Despite the tragic violence they lived, they believed with all their heart that there was a God who loved them, and that he would never abandon them.
These women give me strength and taught me more than I can ever express. In the worst imaginable circumstances, they didn't worry about their future. And they didn't question their suffering.
We all worry about the future. We freak out. We wonder if things will go the way we have planned. We get anxious. We want control. We want to know what will happen before it does. We feel like we need to be prepared. Like our future is in our hands and so we need to make the right decisions. We ask how we will get through suffering. How we will heal a broken heart. How we will live after the loss of a loved one. Fear that we will never find our soul mate. Worry we'll always be alone. We won't be able to pay our debts. We won't measure up to another person's standards of success. We'll disappoint someone. We'll fail. We won't be all that we were meant to be.
Whether or not you believe in God or any sort of higher being, deep down we know that our future is not totally in our hands. There's only so much we can control in life. You might believe in fate, or destiny, or you might believe that God already has a plan for your life. Either way, its all the same. We are only human, and life throws us things we aren't expecting all the time. Our lives are brief in the span of the world as a whole. Even if you're not buying this, and you think everything that happens to us happens based on decisions we have made...we are frail. Because at any moment our lives could end. We could get in a deadly car crash or some other sort of accident. Our lives are not our own. Our future is not in our control.
So why do we worry? If you believe in God, then you know he would never throw something at us that he didn't know we are fully capable of handling with his help. He wouldn't leave us out to dry. He knows how much we can take. And like those women believed with all their hearts, he would never abandon us. If you don't believe in God, my argument still stands. There's no reason to worry in life. Look at how strong these Congolese women are. It's not a competition of whose suffering measures out to be worse. But I guarantee you, you're not going to even come close if you try. They lived through a horribly violent war. They were brutally raped. They continue to live with the physical pain and haunting memories. They are now infected with HIV/AIDS. Many were shunned from their communities. Meaning they don't even get to see their own children. They continue to live in poverty. Their entire world was taken from them. But they are NOT worried about their future. They have faith in a happy ending. They know deep down that they are capable of fighting whatever the evil in our world brings next. But they have faith that peace will come instead.
If they can have hope that after all they have experienced, all will be okay, how can we not?
These amazingly strong women didn't worry about their future. And rather than questioning their suffering, they knew redemption was coming for them. They trusted more of life was on its way. That this wasn't it. That the rest of their life would not be full of suffering. They had so much faith in that that in the mist of trauma, violence, and suffering...they praised God for his goodness and love. That's right. After all of the horrors they lived, they THANKED God. Crazy, right?
Or is it? Ever notice how we get angry at God (or the world if we don't believe in God) for sending us pain? For making life hard? What good does that do for us? I recently read a book called Bittersweet, about the beauty of a life that is both bitter and sweet. With only sweetness, we don't appreciate life. Without bitterness, we can't grow in life. Ever notice how in the worst times of suffering, we come out a stronger person? We grow in suffering. We learn who we are, what we're capable of, who we can count on, how to heal, at what point we break, what matters in life. In every difficult time, we learn something valuable that we can use to live a better life.
Even more importantly, we grow in strength. Without suffering, we would be weak. Half alive. Sweet but not bitter. Unaware of all that we are capable of being.
So why not be thankful for pain sometimes? Without the pain you've experienced you would not be the person you are. You wouldn't be this strong. You wouldn't be this deep. The bitter and how we deal with it is what makes us beautiful. Its what makes us become all we were designed to be. Strong. Always growing. Always learning more about ourselves. Intricately beautiful.
The Congolese women I met two summers ago have been an inspiration to me ever since. But too often, I forget what they taught me. I worry about the silly things life brings my way. I worry about my future not going the way I planned. I get frustrated when life isn't easy. I get angry when I encounter pain and suffering. Those beautifully strong women in Congo did not. If they can have faith in a better future, if they can thank God for his goodness in the midst of their suffering...
How can I not?
How can we not?
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