To be like Jesus in pain

I don’t know what I saw the other day. Half of me wishes to know so I could dispel the rampant horror stories going through my head, but the other half of me knows that if I really knew, I would probably hate.

Melissa and I were walking on a footpath along the river, heading to a friend’s house. I was in the middle of speaking when something made me look across the river to the other bank. Thinking back, I assume it was the commotion that turned my attention there. What I saw was a man with a large bamboo pole beating a woman who was lying on the ground; several people stood around. She was screaming. The screams were distant to my ears, but I heard them clearly enough.

“Oh, God.” I gasped, but by the time Melissa saw where I was looking, the beating was over.

What had I seen? I was terrified, but it wasn’t for myself that I was terrified. It was a scene I wanted to still be a world away from. Sickness rose in the pit of my stomach, and I looked away, but then I looked back. What was happening?

More screaming and yelling. The man was circling the woman on the ground. I looked away. I looked back. He threw the pole down and started yanking at a tarp the woman was lying on.

My heart was beating wildly. I know my pace sped up. What was going to happen to the woman? Was she alive? And I was sick inside.

Disbelief wanted to set in immediately because I didn’t want what I saw to be true. Maybe it wasn’t what I thought it was. Maybe that wasn’t a woman on the ground . . . Melissa didn’t see it, so maybe my own stress within the culture is projecting out what is not there . . .

It’s the fact that humanity has been degraded. It’s the fact that humanity is not seen in a beating, that the image of a Creator “whose love endures forever” is nowhere near that portrayal of mankind. It’s that I know this happens over and over everywhere around the world, but it’s also that here, in this new world that I am walking in, it’s acceptable . . . well, maybe not acceptable, but it’s accepted.

Oh, God, what do you do with this? What do you do when humanity becomes animal and no trace of your character remains?

I can do nothing, and I feel trapped. I know truth that sets people free, but in this situation, I can do nothing. I don’t even know what I saw. My insides churn; my heart aches.

And then I remember what someone said to me when I related feeling helpless in a brothel room not being able to communicate or to fly the girls away. He said that when I am in a room and want to be like Jesus, it’s not just in the giving of hope or love that I become Jesus to others; it’s also in the suffering and feeling what they feel that I become like Jesus.

Jesus, if this is where you lead, help me not to become skittish and flee. If bearing pain means becoming like you, make me more like you.