I can’t remember when I originally learned of the 21 Christians taken by ISIS in Libya and murdered on the beach in 2015. I’m almost positive it was within the last year. It’s believed that the first batch of captives were taken in December, and the second in January, all compelled to denounce Christ and convert to Islam, but ultimately refusing, leading to their brutal executions in February. Of course, that bravery is admirable on its own. But what stood out most about the story were reports that 1 of the 21 hostages wasn’t originally a Christian, but was so moved by the faith of the others, that he rejected the chance to save himself, proclaiming “their God is my God.”
Recently, while I was mindlessly scrolling through reels, I came across an animation of it that moved me to tears. I don’t know how to describe why or how it became so much more powerful to me, but it did. And it was like all at once and out of nowhere, I was completely overwhelmed with an acute awareness of all that I’d been given – and all I’d taken for granted.
I thought about the material comfort I’d known since the moment I came into the world. I couldn’t think of a time I genuinely feared for my life. The most pushback I’d ever gotten over my religious beliefs was polite silence from peers and teachers when I plainly stated I didn’t believe in the Big Bang Theory or evolution.
Yes, I’ve worried about money, like almost everyone else has. I’ve been hurt, I’ve been violated, I’ve been assaulted. I’ve lost opportunities over my convictions. But when I zoom out and look at the big picture, I find myself buckling under the weight of God’s providence.
What felt mundane to me was a literal miracle.
And it was made possible by tragedy.
My family has been in this country for at least nine generations. The furthest we’ve been able to trace back the tree is to a woman born in South Carolina in 1804 and her husband born in 1805. Their parents and siblings remain a mystery.
I assume they endured degradation, abuse, and hardship that I’ve only gotten a glimpse of in books and movies.
But watching that illustration of martyred Christians in Libya was the first time I really felt what the pain of my elders had made possible for me.
And this isn’t an original idea. I remember reading a Thomas Sowell quote that articulated the same thing. But this time, it wasn’t an abstract thought, but a reality I couldn’t ignore in my life or lineage.
I know that there is beauty and opportunity everywhere – including Africa. I know that it’s not just mud huts and malaria. I know that while stereotypes exist for a reason, the continent has more to offer than its catastrophes. I know that right here in America, people toil in conditions that seem oceans away when all that separates us is a handful of highways.
But nevertheless, as I replayed the video and sat in the aftermath, my mind wandered back to the documentary I watched in my sociology class freshman year, about a place where there were higher rates of AIDS than literacy, or the one about how common violent, life-threatening rape was for women in the Congo, or how albinos were hunted in certain areas so their bodyparts could be used in witchcraft rituals, or how bald men were murdered over the belief that there was gold in their skulls. And outside of the shocking and sensational, I thought about the hard data on basic utility access and reliability, poverty, child brides, female genital mutilation, and Christian persecution.
I know that there are Africans that live like me. There are Africans who have work from home jobs and like to go to HomeGoods and bed rot watching TV.
But there are a lot more Africans that don’t.
And when I think about how different everything could have been for me if my forefathers had never made that journey across the Atlantic, or withstood centuries of dehumanization, I can’t help but feel gratitude.
If I had the chance to trade places with a hundred random Africans, I wouldn’t do it. If I had the chance to trade places with a hundred random white Americans, I wouldn’t do it either. That’s how great my life has been.
And while it doesn’t justify the legacy of slavery, it’s given me a newfound appreciation for our God.
In all of the wickedness and dysfunction of our world, He still works, He still redeems, and He still finds a way to make His love known.
While it’s much more socially acceptable to talk about American slavery as a uniquely evil historical atrocity that doomed black Americans into a cycle of neverending adversity, that’s not the way I see it.
When I look at the grainy, black and white photo of my great great great great grandfather sitting in front of a shack, I know that what I have today doesn’t change what he went through. I won’t downplay what the United States government permitted because it benefitted me – but I also won’t pretend it didn’t.
Through the sorrow of a slave, God wrote a story that led to blessings so abundant that it’s easy to forget that’s exactly what they are.
I don’t know how it ends, but I know that God is good.
He was good two hundred years ago, He is good today and He will be good forever.
And while our lives will never be immune to struggle, injustice, or anguish, He will always be with us, and He will always be not just capable but willing to turn heartache into hope and grow roses from rubble.
When I look at what He’s done in my family alone, I can’t help but be humbled, and I can’t help but wonder who or what God could be using my own suffering to save.
what do you think?