A FULL WEEK... I am not sure I can recap all that has happened since last Monday. The week started with lectures on gender in justice. A week that blew my mind, broke my heart, and angered my soul. We talked about gendercide, sex-selected abortions, child marriages, human trafficking, prostitution, honour killings, widow killings, witch hunts, female genital mutilation. All of which will be a part of my life in some way or another during the next year. I cried everyday, realizing the actual state of the world. The brokenness, the sorrow, the cruelty, the injustice, the emptiness. All of which would have taken me out, packing my bags to come home defeated if I hadn't remembered the beautiful cross. We talked about honour killings. How Muslims use blood to be free from shame. Wither it's killing a woman because of her sexual immorality, (by her choice, or by rape) or taking the life of an enemy who killed someone in your family, or even holding up the blood spilled from a wedding night simply to prove the valid virginity of the girl... Blood brings honour. The cross did as well. The blood of Jesus brought honour by taking shame. Restoring what was lost. But the beauty of the cross was that the blood only had to be shed once. The beauty of the cross is that blood doesn't need to be shed any more. It really was finished when He said it was. Muslims, almost, have a deeper revelation about the power of the blood of the lamb than I do. It's just so severely misguided. So severely perverted. What a gift that I can be God's hands and feet to these women who God so desperately longs to hold and comfort. To sit with them, and tell them, this is not okay. It doesn't need to be this way. There is joy and peace in life. It was not intended to be this way. There is life. There is joy. There is peace.
Thank you Lord. Thank you for life. Thank you for midwifery. That I can be the voice of the voiceless. And HANDS OF PEACE.