women of suffering

About three months ago, a young couple from a village in a neighboring state moved to our building in K-town to find work in the city. We’ve had tea and snacks in their tiny room and have thoroughly enjoyed their humor and gentleness.

One morning as I was chopping vegetables, our new friend whom we call “sister” stood in the doorway and told us her story. After being married at age fifteen, she joined her husband’s family, as is custom. Though her husband is kind, his family treated her like a slave. They physically, verbally and emotionally abused her for many years, forcing her to submit to them in fear. I would never have guessed her past because she’s so joyful and gregarious. Maybe she just feels free and joyful now that she lives away from her in-laws. From her immediate perspective, moving to a slum has been a shift from slavery to freedom!

Then there’s aunty, a middle class, middle-aged woman who my roommate and I met at our small local church. She invited us to her home for tea one afternoon. Sharing her story with us, she explained that for the past nine years of being a follower of Jesus, her husband has physically, verbally and emotionally abused her. (the husband was at work when we visited) She has remained in the marriage in order to prove the powerful love and faithfulness of Christ to her husband and children. She lives in cycles of fear and fearlessness, despair and hope. I can’t say what I think the perfect or right answer is for her situation. I don’t yet know what my role is in these sorts of relationships. But I do know that I understand nothing of her pain and that my faithfulness and patience has never been tested like hers.

I heard both these stories in one day and I have utmost respect for these women. My heart was heavy, yet I was also somehow encouraged by how these two women have faced so much injustice and exploitation and yet laugh, love and hope. These are two unique women, but the same stories happen all the time.

I would never have heard these specific stories as a white American male who lived the life prescribed for me by my culture. Sister and her husband live in a tiny room in the back corner of a random building in a poor community in K-town. There’s no way under normal circumstances that she’d have felt free to share her story in my doorway. It would have been inappropriate and unheard of in this culture. But I live in her building, so it’s okay. I wash my clothes and draw water from the well along side her. It took a few months to break down initial barriers with sister and brother (her husband) just as it does with anyone, but only time and solidarity could have brought her to share her story and be our friend. Now we know a bit of where she’s come from and we can share in her life story more deeply.

And the aunty from Church… Only after spending time at our local fellowship were we invited to share in her story of suffering and hope.

There’s a time each Sunday for any of the sixty church members to share prayer requests and praises. Although we’re tightly squished into a room the size of a two-car garage, I can’t understand a lot of it, but I’m now part of a suffering family that shares their suffering along with their tears. Many believers are rejected and treated poorly by their families. They’re a minority in a Hindu society.

On Easter morning after some tears had been shed, we all stood in musical celebration of Jesus who stood with us in our suffering and took it upon himself to give us life. My sisters and brothers know what that means more than I do. They celebrated with true gratitude and hope. They‘re teaching me a lot about suffering, faith and hope.

Some days living in my slum makes me feel useless. But I’m continually reminded that even, or especially, in this season of being in solidarity and having extra time to watch and learn, my path is being crossed with those who know suffering and who teach me joy and perseverance in the midst of suffering.

In order to partake in our stories of suffering, Jesus first had to cross class, religious, social, economic, language, cultural, gender and ethnic lines. He never seemed to stop pushing across the boundaries prescribed for him. As I awkwardly try to mimic Christ in my shaky faith and tangled motives, I’ve been trying to somehow stumble and crawl in his footsteps… and across those lines I wash clothes, cook food, speak like an idiot and check out the local fellowship. Now I’m seeing more of the beauty that was different from me, along with the stories of suffering that I get to join in some small sort of way. And all this, only because Jesus joined our story in the flesh in order to suffer with us and show us a life of hope and grace.