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Their Courage

The guitar strums.  People sing.  "Here I am, calling out... if you can heal the broken hearted, if you can take away the pain...will you hear me if I call on your name..."   God.  Think on him.  Engage.  Pain swells in my chest until I think it will  burst from the pressure.  Throat tightening.  Eyes on fire.  Press the thin lids tighter and seal off the flood.  How to recover?  How to grasp this and his love?  Now is when I always abort.  Avert the eyes and the thoughts and retreat to shallower waters.  Pull back to safety.  But not today. 

Today I think of the widow's words that I read in VOM (Voice of the Martyrs) Magazine.  The attackers broke each of her husband's fingers, then his arms, then his legs- each time giving him an opportunity to renounce Christ.  He refused, and the  radical Hindu mob buried him alive. The Indian woman's words seared my heart.  "But God is alive, and I am surviving only through him... I just want my story to be a testimony to the love of Christ."     And the courage of another new, young widow.  "There is still fear there but God is with us, so he is leading us day by day.  Because of his blessings we are surviving and still worshiping him." 

Still worshiping him.  Still.  Worshiping.  Him.  I am ashamed in the face of their courage- these women who are younger than I.  Chagrined.  Encouraged.  I sip from their courage a tiny drop.  I slip one hand up, reaching toward heaven, and form the words, pushing them off my lips.  "Here I am... calling out..."  More strumming.   I look up and a friend has appeared to hug me.  The lids lose their hold on the flood.  She has no words.  Even better- she just stands there and worships and cries with me.  She stands there.  With me.  And I am not alone. 

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