In another conversation with a different girl who hasn’t
been able to get beyond her scars, I tried explaining how God is still good even
in times like these. But it’s hard for her to believe it. She said she wants
the Lord, but she’s too full of pain. “What if you’re stuck?” she asked me.
“Like, I want Jesus but I can’t. I’m just stuck.”
“What’s holding you back? What’s holding you down?”
“Unforgiveness. What they did to me.”
“What did they do to you?”
She gave me an eye roll. “Mama Kate, you know what they
did to me.”
“Yes, sweetheart, I know. The rape is something I cannot
fathom. What did that do to you? What else did they do that you can’t let go
of?”
One tear escaped down her cheek and then quickly
disappeared. “They shattered my dreams. They took everything. They took who I
am and everything I could be.”
Seeing this girl battle having HIV has been so painful.
How can I blame her for blaming God? I don’t want to undermine her pain or
expect her to believe that God is good. Yet, how can I withhold the very Truth
that will set her free?
“God loves you so much that no matter what they took from
you, He can give you more. There is nothing the Lord cannot heal. Satan has
come to steal, kill, and destroy, but he is no match for God’s power. There is
no evil in this world that our God cannot redeem. That’s why He’s so good, so
great, so loving. The evil that other people in their own sin and sick choices
commit cannot overshadow the mighty love of Jesus Christ. They gave you death
(HIV), but HE gives you life! They shattered your dreams, but HE will give you
new, big, and better ones! They stripped away your identity and took away who
you are, but He restores your brokenness by making you whole again. Making you
new. Making you perfect. Making you undefiled. Born again.”
She smiles for the first time. I circle back to our
previous discussion about forgiveness.
“Forgiving them is not about them. It’s about you taking
hold of freedom. It’s about you letting go of the pain so you can grasp the
hand of Jesus instead. Let him lead you. Renew you, restore you. Forgive them,
so you can be free.”
I asked if she was ready to forgive them. She said she
didn’t think so. I asked her if she wanted to practice forgiving them, and she looked
at me like I was crazy.
“How about you write a letter. You love writing letters.
Write a letter to your uncles naming everything you just told me and forgive
them for it. Just to practice. Just try writing it out and see what happens.”
She paused in thought and then shrugged her shoulders.
“Okay, it’s just practice.”
Twenty minutes later, she found me doing laundry and left
the letter on my bed. “Here.”
“You have ruled my
life in such a way I did not like. You made me to see myself as a bad person
who doesn’t know who she is and where I belong and I can’t even find the
purpose of living and of being alive.
But you know what?
God will change the ashes into beauty and at the end of this life Jesus the Son
of God will put me a crown of beauty. I can be a virgin again only if I believe
in him. Who do you think you are? Jesus is my husband and mother Mary my mother
and she love me so much.
She will carry me
to heaven to see my Father, so forget about me and I will forget about you too.
I used to cry every day and no one will pay attention and even my family did
not care…I forgive them too. My face have scars it’s because of my granny and I
forgive her too. I am sure that God will repay all of the things that was taken
from me.
Some day there will
be no sorrow but instead will be joy, happiness, peace, and adorations. I
forgive you all.”
Stunned, I could only stare at the miracle in my hands. If
this is “practice,” I can’t wait to see how many more chains will break through
this girl’s life when she believes every word from her heart.