RESILIENCE WRITES YOUR STORY

RESILIENCE WRITES YOUR STORY

Perhaps resilience is the most powerful lesson we can glean from the life of one statesman extraordinaire, Founding President Nelson Mandela, of the Republic of South Africa.  Born amidst the most challenging and agonizing of life-situations, apartheid, he purposefully persevered.  Mandela was unjustly imprisoned on Robben Island for 27 years, but he never allowed his incarceration to enter into his soul or to sour his spirit.  Rather, he chose the path of forgiveness and reconciliation, thereby healing a nation and a people.

Arguably, President Mandela traded his youth, his family life, his marriage and a host of other things we may never know about in order to invest sacrificially in the liberation of South Africans and humankind.  When the poet laureate, Maya Angelou, penned her epic prose, “Still I Rise,” she might well have been personally inspired by the life and legacy of Tata Madiba, as he is affectionately known to his brothers, sisters, daughters and sons in his beloved South Africa.

“Still I Rise”    - by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops,

Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

How grateful Belinda and I are to have resided in South Africa as long-term missionaries, and to have personally visited Mandela’s incarceration sites, both in Johannesburg’s Section Four Prison and Cape Town’s Robben Island Prison.  Most importantly, we observed first-hand the awesome and ongoing transition of a phenomenal nation that is destined to be the major conduit of spiritual, political and social change on the continent of Africa. 

Today, it is our signal honor to salute this world-shaker, this dreamer, this visionary, this revolutionary, this social prophet, who was duly deputized and dispatched by Almighty God to love and liberate an oppressed people.  Rest in peace, President Nelson Mandela, rest in peace.  From our hearts, we thank you, as we solemnly honor and joyously celebrate your rare and magnanimous contribution to human history.  We collectively resolve to emulate your courage, your compassion, your consistency and your conviction.  We will remain ready, resilient, focused, free, helpful and hopeful, notwithstanding challenging circumstances.  And in doing so, sisters and brothers, all will be continually blessed!