The Forty-Day Journey of Promise
Day One: From Victims to Victors
Where Do You Find Hope?
When life crushes the dreams you dreamed, where do you find hope? When suffering invades your life, who do you turn to for examples of moving from victim to victor? We uncover amazing examples of moving beyond suffering to God’s healing hope in the narratives of the great cloud of African American witnesses.
The Journey Begins: Soul-Destroyers and Soul-Deliverance
Free born Africans were ripped away from spouses, parents, children, village, and culture by capture. Stripped of everything, overnight they were transformed from farmers, merchants, scholars, artisans, or warriors into possessions. Without family, without status, they were treated as merchandise, as things—a mere extension of their captors’ will.
James Bradley portrays the dehumanization of capture in all its horror in a letter that he wrote in 1834 while a student at Lane Seminary in Cincinnati.
“I think I was between two and three years old when the soul-destroyers tore me from my mother’s arms, somewhere in Africa, far back from the sea. They carried me a long distance to a ship; all the way I looked back and cried.”
Without a doubt, free-born Africans were victims of an inhumane institution. Yet, they were also victors wrestling to maintain their humanity and personhood. But how? In the midst of soul-destroyers, where did they find soul-deliverance? Their “Capture Narratives” tell their tale and provide our answer.
Born Free
“I . . . acknowledge the mercies of Providence in every occurrence of my life.”
These words from the pen of the Christian Olaudah Equiano might seem trite until we realize that they introduce the narrative of his harrowing kidnapping and enslavement.
Equiano was born free in 1745 in the kingdom of Benin on the coast of Africa, then known as Guinea. The youngest of seven children, his loving parents gave him the name Olaudah, signifying favored one. Indeed, he lived a favored life in his idyllic upbringing in a simple and quiet village where his father served as the “chief man” who decided disputes and punished crimes, and where his mother adored him dearly.
Bathed in Tears: Shared Sorrow Is Endurable Sorrow
At age ten, it all came crashing down.
“One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, tied our hands, and ran off with us into the nearest wood: and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on, when we reached a small house, where the robbers halted for refreshment, and spent the night.”
His kidnappers then unbound Equiano and his sister. Overpowered by fatigue and grief, they had just one source of relief.
“The only comfort we had was in being in one another’s arms all that night, and bathing each other with our tears.”
Equiano and his sister model a foundational principle for moving from victim to victors—weeping together. Shared sorrow is endurable sorrow.
Far too often we rush in with words before we enter one another’s sad stories of suffering. Our hurting friends need our silence, not our speeches. The shed tear and the silent voice provide great enrichment for our spiritual friends.
Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)
1. What do you think and feel as you read Bradley and Equiano’s stories?
2. How could your ministry deepen if you empathetically bathed others in your tears?
Note: The Journey is our forty-day blog series where we’ll learn life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. This series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. If you’d like to learn more about Beyond the Suffering, click here.
Olaudah Equiano
Far too often, I find myself being more concerned with knowing what to say to others in times of sorrow. Thanks for the reminder that I need to focus on listening first and simply being there for them. The time for words may come – but then again it might not. Listening is always in season. Thanks for the post.
Wow, that is amazing, soul-stirring, thought-provoking testimony. I am reminded, like Stephen said, that I often am scrambling to know what to say – praying for wisdom to say the right thing – good stuff, to be sure, but it is well to consider the value of listening silence, a compassionate, caring, sanctified silence that just says “I care, I love you, I will cry with you, and together we will seek the comfort of Christ – I am here”. Thanks for sharing this.
Stephen and Lorraine, You’re right on target–we focus on ourselves instead of on just being with the other person. We’ll see even more tomorrow about the power of personal presence to light one another’s path.
Empathy is one way that we are bound together in the Body of Christ, and is so well said in the saying, “I do not care how much you know until I know how much you care.” The parable in John 15 I believe has the focus on staying connected with each other in order to stay connected to the vine in the spiritual world just as the branches etc. must stay connected to stems in order to stay connected to the vine in the physical world. This is also highlighted in the Bible with all the “one another” commands, but is so often ignored by most of the teaching and preaching that we hear in this country. We Americans have this individualistic focus that is so unbiblical and causes us to look at ourselves rather than each other like we should. Read the early chapters of Acts and see the “oneness” of the early church and the amazing results that God brought about as a result. God has not changed nor has His power slackened, but we have a “better idea” and method of trying to achieve the same “success” that the early church had but fail miserably. And we refuse to do acknowledge that failure and go back to doing it God’s way, bud blame everyone else and everything else for things not working like they did then. Then we wonder why so few want to join us in the church, the body of Christ. “There is a way that seems to be right to man, but the end of that way is the way of death.” When will we learn to “Find the old paths and walk in them,” and allow God to be God and not us?
I can’t begin to imagine the depth of pain that Bradley and Equiano’s felt but my emotions are stirred and my heart hurts just reading this excerpt.
When my father was in the trauma unit I spend nights up in the ward. That meant being in a room with 29 other people who had loved ones fighting for their lives. Those were some of the longest, hardest, yet most life-changing nights of my life. I found that people did not need words very often. Many times their minds were to boggled to receive them. But they did need the hugs, hand-holding, or other kind gestures. Not a lot of talking went on at night but there were friendships formed upon very few words. Some of the best counseling moments of my life took place in that setting.
You made a very powerful statement saying “Far too often we rush in with words before we enter one another’s sad stories of suffering. Our hurting friends need our silence, not our speeches. The shed tear and the silent voice provide great enrichment for our spiritual friends.”
Excellent point! We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason 🙂