I was on my fifth trip to Rwanda over the last eighteen years when we came to the beautiful geranium farm run by Dr. Hitimana of Ikirezi.
We passed an elementary school along the dirt road as a beautiful flock of girls in matching, weathered blue uniforms ran down the hills toward the dirt road, waving.
I could hear the other passengers on the van with folks from Thistle Farms and Ikirezi laughing and cheering the young girls as they ran. But inside, a wall in me broke.
I almost said out loud a revelation that came like a bolt of lightening, “I was set up.”
After experiencing the devastating loss of my father in a car crash at age 5, I was left exposed to a predator. As I watched those beautiful young girls that came in the aftermath of a whole country in trauma, I know some of them have been set up by this world to experience more trauma. I was ready for the familiar anger that dwells in me to bubble up.
That anger has been fuel for the work for thirty years. It comes from knowing that when universal issues land on individual backs, they will break without justice stepping in to support.
But anger was not was rose in me. Not this time.
As I saw the girls running, I felt tenderness. It was transformative to finally realize there is tenderness in all people who have known injustices and keep loving the world.
Tenderness that resides deeper than anger and is more powerful. Tenderness towards yourself, your neighbors and the world allows souls to overflow with love.
I am telling you, dear readers, because I can say, “It works!”
Through the long journey of forgiveness and healing, the hard and dry ground of anger finds tender shoots that bloom new leaves for healing. Transformation is not an event; it is a lifelong commitment to love bringing new life with tears.
Tears for all the things done, all the things left undone.
All the things we remember, all the things we have forgotten.
Tears for all the people who love us through it.
All the things we remember, all the things we have forgotten.
Tears for all the people who love us through it.
There is fertile soil in all of us ready to bear good fruit.
We never get to the other side as survivors, but we dig deeper and plant something beautiful in our tears.
This is my message to you, and my message to myself thirty years ago. If you keep going, you will discover freedom.
You will turn the sword into a ploughshare, and you will be part of a rich harvest that heals.
I would have never felt this transformation by trying to think my way through it. We have to love the path and the many long nights of contemplation.
-- Becca Stevens