It's been awhile but good news: forgiveness wins

Well I came to the end of my first term of teaching. I felt it is a good time to stop and reflect on what it is I have gotten myself into. ☺ My last few weeks of the term I felt kind of bipolar…thinking one moment that I am so happy and doing good things and liked as a human being and the next minute thinking that I am failing as a teacher, not liked or appreciated and lonely. I think the hurricane of emotions was do to the change in schedule that came with a week of exams and then a week of grading…i.e. more free time than I am used to (never have been good at resting). Now, one week after submitting my grades I am feeling very optimistic and excited about being a teacher and being in Rukara. So that’s a good thing☺

But what I wanted to write about today is not my emotional instability or worth as a human being. Rwandan schools take a break in April because it is their memorial month. It was in the month of April that the genocide began in 1994. April 7 was the national day of mourning and there was a powerful weight over this community as they began to commemorate the anniversary. They spent one week sharing stories, crying, comforting, and declaring “never again.” The people here feel a conviction and a repulsion to killing deeper than any I have seen. Reconciliation, however, is a longer road than some would like to believe. The government here talks a great deal about reconciliation and unity. No one is allowed to talk about tribes or ethnicity and every school is encouraged to have a unity and reconciliation club. In the villages, however, reconciliation is a slower process, but people are trying and there is now a whole generation that was not alive during the atrocities of 94 and they are helping reconciliation along while at the same time trying to understand their place, their posture towards a 100 day long horror that they do not understand but they see the effects of everywhere.

The Rwandan commitment to remembering and reconciling strikes me deeply as I look around the world and in my own heart where the need for reconciliation runs rampant. From the conflict in Israel and Palestine to families in America the power of forgiveness cannot be underestimated. But as the Rwandan people know, forgiving does not mean forgetting or just brushing over the issue. It means facing the pain, injustice and frustration in the face and wading through the muck to choose in every moment to forgive. Reconciliation does not say, “well what happened didn’t matter,” but reconciliation says, “man what happened was terrible and I know that and I feel the pain from that but I choose not to run away but to face you and work towards that which is good and true and shalom-filled.” The Rwandan people amaze me.

My challenge to you is to find someone that you need to forgive and don’t just move on or forget but embrace the hurt and the memory and reconcile. Not with guilt trips or self-pity but with strength that comes from the knowledge that Christ DIED for you when you were still sinner so that YOU could be reconciled to him. He faced more rejection and pain than most of us ever will because he stinkin LOVES you. In that truth we find strength, love and forgiveness for those in our life who have hurt us, for those in this world who have done evil. We don’t forget the evil but we overcome it with good. In Mere Christianity there is a brilliant explanation of why good wins. Good wins (God wins) because only God is truly creative. Only He can create something from nothing. The Devil (or that which is evil) is only ever a manipulation of that which is good-it is never something new, it is only too much or a twisted version of something that started as good. Our God is good. He has forgiven us and reconciled us to himself out of love. Thus we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that forgiveness and reconciliation is a more powerful force in the world than all at hatred and spitefulness can ever muster up. And that is good news.
He is Risen, team, just as he said he would.
Floored by the magnitude of our God, and the power of forgiveness,
Much love and shalom,

cg