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As I turned the last page of the most inspiring and touching book I have ever read, my heart is touched in a way no other book has touched me. In Left to Tell, by Immaculee Ilibagiza, illustrates the true story of a women who lived and kept her faith and love for god and humanity amidst the brutal and heart wrenching period of the Rwandan holocaust. The Rwandan holocaust is one of the most tragic events in the history of mankind where one million Tutsis were hunted and slaughtered with guns, grenades, and machetes in an effort to annihilate and erase an entire group of people from history in just three short months. She survived while hiding in a three foot by four foot bathroom for 3 months with 7 other women on barely enough food to survive. She was hunted daily and many times found the killers just an arm's length away on the other side of the wall she was hiding behind ready to discover her at any moment. Both of her parents as well as all of her siblings were brutally murdered by the Hutu extremists, yet she still maintained her faith and love for god and even found forgiveness in her heart for the people who murdered her family. Left to Tell is her story.
I was moved beyond words at the beauty and amazing heart that was so palpable it practically reached off the page and touched me. She found a sense of peace and love in her heart through such great atrocities that many people can't even begin to fathom. It is sometimes through our darkest hour and our greatest struggles that our faith, heart, and love is challenged. It is through our trials and tribulations that we have the opportunity to give in to doubt, hate, and fear, or we can work on centering ourselves and connecting with a higher power.
I hope that we never have to go through or experience anything even close to what Immaculee had to endure to test our faith, power to forgive, and love. However, we all have our own trials and tribulations to endure. We all have things in our life that we need to put our faith in and trust that life is going to unfold exactly the way it is supposed to. I firmly believe that we have the capacity to live our life as though everything is a miracle or nothing is a miracle. I firmly believe that it is possible to believe and be grateful that literally everything in our life happens for a reason and that reason is love. Everything serves us in strengthening our capacity to be grateful and to love. I possess no where near the level of faith that I so admire in Immaculee but I commit myself to strengthening my resolve every single day.
When we put our faith in a higher power, we are never alone on this journey. When we forgive people who have wronged us in any way, we free ourselves from the shackles of hatred that block our true light from being expressed. When we open our heart to all that life offers us with gratitude, we discover that every situation, painful and pleasurable, is serving us. When we seek answers to life's most challenging questions with an open mind as well as an open heart, we can communicate with the part of our soul that is all knowing and all powerful. We begin to communicate with God.
Love,
Matt
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