How Long Must They Suffer?
Ok - I'm beginning to think I shouldn't watch movies anymore. After years of living in Cambodia, I had gotten to the point I couldn't take dramas anymore. Emotionally I was spent after days of seeing and living with the trauma of a post-war society. So my husband and I resorted to renting comedies, romantic, satire, or otherwise, to get our minds off our work and the stress of life there. Afterall, it only cost about 50 cents there - a pretty cheap coping mechanism! But recently we rented a couple movies from Blockbuster, one about a former ruler of Uganda and tonight just a funny, ridiculous story about pregnancy. The first one was gruesome and traumatic as it relayed parts of a true story. The second just resurrected my dread of the year I was pregnant with my youngest child. Being pregnant made me realize how selfish I really am -- I didn't like being taken over by, what felt like, a foreign object! So, long story short, both movies left me feeling sick and sleepless.
Maybe I've become overly sensitive to things. Maybe I'm dealing with a slight case of PTS disorder myself, like my friend Brian who is taking a year break from Cambodia to recoup in Washington state. I don't know. Maybe my hormones just have me weeping about everything . . . but that's supposed to be predictable to a certain extent, right???
I was looking through pictures and headlines of this past week in national and world events. In the back drop to the pregnant woman who lost her baby after being stampeded during a Black Friday rush, there were the attacks in Mumbai, India . . . people from all over the world were victims in that scene. And the death toll rises due to the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, where a ruler who lost the election is too busy protecting his power to notice his people dying by the thousands of starvation and now disease. Thank goodness he has finally allowed aid workers back into the country. And then there was another bombing in Iraq killing 20 people. I wonder how many people noticed that on the news. Twenty doesn't sound like such a big number unless it is your wife or child or grandchild who was one of them. I looked at the pictures and I could not stop crying. The faces of grief and anguish, of sorrow and desire for comfort.
And what made me cry more is knowing that no one else I knew here was crying for them. In fact, I felt afraid to admit that I was crying. I feared someone telling me that, to help myself, I should stop thinking about those things. I don't like the helpless feeling in the words, "There's nothing you can do about it." I don't want to hear that I need to go on with my life. My life is here and that is there. No one says these words, but in the silence, I feel them.
And thinking those thoughts, whether they are true or not, makes me angry. Angry at myself for living here. Angry at how easy my life is. Angry when I hear people here in the U.S. worry about safety or how aweful 9/11 was. The faces I saw in the pictures this past week were grief stricken and I am sure that many of the faces around them trying to comfort them had seen this pain before -- maybe even yesterday. And they know that maybe tomorrow the pain could be their own. They live with this pain day in and day out. These thoughts make me cry out to God on their behalf . . . "how long, O Lord!"
The words to Psalm 13 have been flooding my mind and heart in relation to people suffering around the world today and this week:
How long, O Lord, will you forget them?
How long, O Lord, will you look the other way?
How long, O Lord, must I wrestle with my thoughts
And every day have such sorrow in my heart?
Look on me and answer, O God, my Father!
Bring light to their darkness, before I see them fall.
The last part of the Psalm brings comfort to me and I pray it for all those who need to feel God's comfort:
But I trust in your unfailing love
Yes, my heart will rejoice
Still I trust in your unfailing love
You have been good to me.
Comfort Your people, O Lord, with Your love and goodness.
Help them to see You in their darkness
so that they can have strength and peace in the painful times.
Lord, have mercy on Your Creation.
Bring your redemption to all people and all places,
for the sake of Your Name and Your Kingdom.
AMEN
And now Lord, help me sleep!
Maybe I've become overly sensitive to things. Maybe I'm dealing with a slight case of PTS disorder myself, like my friend Brian who is taking a year break from Cambodia to recoup in Washington state. I don't know. Maybe my hormones just have me weeping about everything . . . but that's supposed to be predictable to a certain extent, right???
I was looking through pictures and headlines of this past week in national and world events. In the back drop to the pregnant woman who lost her baby after being stampeded during a Black Friday rush, there were the attacks in Mumbai, India . . . people from all over the world were victims in that scene. And the death toll rises due to the cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe, where a ruler who lost the election is too busy protecting his power to notice his people dying by the thousands of starvation and now disease. Thank goodness he has finally allowed aid workers back into the country. And then there was another bombing in Iraq killing 20 people. I wonder how many people noticed that on the news. Twenty doesn't sound like such a big number unless it is your wife or child or grandchild who was one of them. I looked at the pictures and I could not stop crying. The faces of grief and anguish, of sorrow and desire for comfort.And what made me cry more is knowing that no one else I knew here was crying for them. In fact, I felt afraid to admit that I was crying. I feared someone telling me that, to help myself, I should stop thinking about those things. I don't like the helpless feeling in the words, "There's nothing you can do about it." I don't want to hear that I need to go on with my life. My life is here and that is there. No one says these words, but in the silence, I feel them.
And thinking those thoughts, whether they are true or not, makes me angry. Angry at myself for living here. Angry at how easy my life is. Angry when I hear people here in the U.S. worry about safety or how aweful 9/11 was. The faces I saw in the pictures this past week were grief stricken and I am sure that many of the faces around them trying to comfort them had seen this pain before -- maybe even yesterday. And they know that maybe tomorrow the pain could be their own. They live with this pain day in and day out. These thoughts make me cry out to God on their behalf . . . "how long, O Lord!"
The words to Psalm 13 have been flooding my mind and heart in relation to people suffering around the world today and this week:
How long, O Lord, will you forget them?
How long, O Lord, will you look the other way?
How long, O Lord, must I wrestle with my thoughts
And every day have such sorrow in my heart?
Look on me and answer, O God, my Father!
Bring light to their darkness, before I see them fall.
The last part of the Psalm brings comfort to me and I pray it for all those who need to feel God's comfort:
But I trust in your unfailing love
Yes, my heart will rejoice
Still I trust in your unfailing love
You have been good to me.
Comfort Your people, O Lord, with Your love and goodness.
Help them to see You in their darkness
so that they can have strength and peace in the painful times.
Lord, have mercy on Your Creation.
Bring your redemption to all people and all places,
for the sake of Your Name and Your Kingdom.
AMEN
And now Lord, help me sleep!
posted by Gecko Girl at
12:48 AM
4 Comments:
Well you seem quite sane to me. Far too many people do not get that feeling of angst and upheaval when confronted with the images you mention.
I thought I was the only one who cannot watch those kinds of movies. I do not "not watch" so as to ignore the reality, rather I do not watch, because the reality is too close emotionally. It is just too painful. Meanwhile the images we see on the news are so stark and real that...well like you said. We are speaking about someone's mom, or sister or son who was just killed!
There is one thing I do that helps relieve the inner tension I feel over the brokenness of our world. I find myself interceding for those who experience the emotional trauma of losing those they love. It might be disease, an accident, or through the injustice of war and power struggles. Whatever the cause the result is the same. Those left behind suffer the devastation of loss.
May God grant os mercy and healing. Thanks for writing.
Peace,
Leon
By
Anonymous, at 3:23 PM, December 07, 2008
thanks, Leon. Yes, you are right, there are times (rare actually) where I have a hard time sleeping and the only way I can relieve my heart is to sit up praying and crying out to God . . . sometimes I'm not even sure what for. Sometimes specific people come to mind, or like this prayer I wrote, it was just for the suffering in general that has happened in the last weeks. Writing this post helped me make my prayer visible so I could take it with me back to bed.
But interestingly enough, after I posted it, very late, I received an email from some friends in Vancouver who were begging for prayer as they struggle in their ministry to homeless and drug addicts. They have had some serious spiritual struggles this week on their team and needed prayer. So, I have come to believe when God keeps me up, there is a reason for it. I need to listen as well as intercede.
Thanks for writing -- glad to know I'm not the only one who struggles with movies :-) And take care of yourself - we missed you this morning! You and your family are also in our prayers.
By
Gecko Girl, at 5:54 PM, December 07, 2008
I wouldn't go as far as to say that no one else you know is crying for them.
Those of us that have had an experience living outside the U.S. for more than a few months naturally have more sdness at these events because the pictures are like looking at home.
But, as "easy" as we have it here in the US (and I know where you come from with that statement) we also have to recognize that this is home for most people we know. Hence, when events like 9/11 hit or fears of other more insidious traumas to come take over the minds of Americans, it's not fair to dismiss those as irrational or selfish. It's home.
I'd say that many are crying out to God asking "how long" here too.
By
Anonymous, at 7:54 AM, December 08, 2008
Why does my Firefox keep shutting down? well, I'll try to write my response again . . .
Audrey, you are right, for me to write this and make it sound like a blanket statement was not fair. I was expressing my frustrations of not being able to sleep and feeling very alone in my grief at that moment. I do know many people, like yourself, who do care about the world nurtured by your connections to other places outside our "homeland."
If I would express my feelings now, I think I would want to first emphasize that I in no way am intending to minimize the pain that people have experienced here at home. Quite the opposite. BUT I do get frustrated, both with myself and in general, when we become desensitized to trauma around the world either because it doesn't impact us directly or we tune it out. We hear the death toll daily on the news and there are days I could just as easily keep on making supper and carrying on any conversation. I always come back to the point that for Americans who enjoy being a world power, we don't always show an equal amount of interest in what is going on in the world. For that I feel I need to pray for myself and the Church, that we not become so focused on our own pain and fear that we are blinded to the same that happens, in some places EVERY DAY!
My 5th grade teacher once told us that every time he hears an ambulance or fire truck go by, he prays for the medics and those involved in the situation wherever it may be. That impacted me greatly and I have tried to do the same ever since. It takes discipline to tune into those sounds which we may hear all the time (especially where I live). So the "tuning in" is part of my issue.
The other part is that, while I may feel pain for those I see in an accident along the road as I drive, I cannot allow fear of my having a similar accident paralyze me from continuing to drive. I feel like Americans have allowed fear to paralyze them. And that, I do think, is irrational. Americans are fearful of all kinds of things these days. Fear is not a fruit of the Spirit and it can blind us from acknowledging the mortal fear people around the globe live everyday.
Your words and that of other friends who have a global perspective always encourage me as does our prayer time at church when we join together remembering our home body as well as our global one. Thanks for your comments.
By
Gecko Girl, at 10:46 AM, December 08, 2008
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