“Suffering in the Lord:” From One Culture to Another
by Meghan Laible
I am sitting on a soft worn blue blanket watching Ba Janice look at a sweet elderly Zambian lady’s chart. There are five of us crammed into a small exam room, with the occasional breeze cooling us. So many distractions outside and inside the room but my focus is on Ba Janice and the look in her eyes. She turns to another student and me and states, “She is HIV positive”. She asks the translator to inform the woman in Tonga. The woman’s eyes just stare off into the distance, taking in the truth that I believe she knew long before. Ba Janice referred her to going to the AIDS clinic to have more blood work done, to know how much the disease has affected her, and also to the free counseling center. My heart is broken; I want to reach out my hands to her and embrace her, to show her the love of God! But I am frozen, frozen to the worn blue blanket that has now started to itch. They prepared us for this, right? They told us in our classes that we would most likely meet many people with AIDS, but telling someone that they have AIDS, I was not ready for this on my sixth day in Zambia. I was not ready for that suffering to be in someone’s eyes so early on. I knew it was coming, but in the first week?
Later that same night I could not sleep, guilt rushed into me. What was I doing in Zambia? How would I be able to help anyone, I did not know suffering like this. Thoughts were running through my mind a million miles per hour! A selfish servant of God, I eventually fell asleep but with a cloud over my heart. Repeating lies to myself that I could not help because I have not known suffering.
The next day we had to read an article for our Mission Anthropology class. The chapter covered all different aspects of culture and communicating the gospel. One line that caught my attention was that sin and suffering is different and unique in every culture. Wow. God just put a speed bump into my thoughts. Why was I feeling shame? Because I struggled with something distinctive to my culture and me, while this precious lady struggled with something that is known to her culture. 1 I am sitting on that blanket in the clinic still struggling with my sin, and this lady now has a new struggle. This Zambian lady could have contracted AIDS from any one of many different sources; hereditary, sexual partners, or the chance she came into contact with blood from another carrier of the disease. The main truth that was revealed to me in this situation is that each sin and struggle is characteristic to different cultures. Through our struggles there is a peace in knowing that my sins and struggles are not any less important than this lady’s before me. Although this situation is heartbreaking, there is peace in knowing that God placed us exactly where we were meant to be, that our story is specifically ours.
God still looks down upon humanity both with grace and compassion, despite what disease we have in our bodies or harm we inflict upon our body. With love that never ends, he looks at us with gentle eyes and calmly whispers into our hearts (Isaiah 14:24-27 paraphrased by the author of this post) “I have planned this and it will happen my precious daughter! I will crush the devil in your heart! Oh my precious daughter I will trample the demons and diseases! Your yoke will be taken away from you, your burden I will lift from your shoulders! I have determined this plan for you my child. My hand is stretched out over your weak heart. I am the Lord almighty; who and what can thwart me! No one, no disease, no sin, nothing! My hands are holding you my sweet precious daughter, what can turn back my love!”
- I am in no way saying that someone in Africa cannot have my same struggles or visa versa. This is just a general observation that I have made in our short time here so far.e, ↩
No comments:
Post a Comment