Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future.
~ Lewis Smedes
Suffering has a way of focusing the senses and adjusting our perspective like nothing else can. Those who have gone hungry appreciate what it means not having to worry about having enough to eat. Those who have been alone recognize the blessing of friends and family. Those who have struggles with sickness know the value of health. And those who have been oppressed thrill to feel the fresh, invigorating breezes of freedom.
The scenes unfolding on the streets of Cairo captured the attention of millions of Americans. Perhaps no nation in history has flown the flag of freedom as visibly, proudly and invitingly as ours. Freedom seems veritably hard-wired into the American DNA. Yet while we esteem liberty, most of us are not in the position to appreciate what a blessing it truly is as do those who have lived without it.
“Ever since the uprising in Egypt began on Jan. 25, I have hardly moved an inch away from the TV screen. I may be in France, but my spirit is in Tahrir Square,” writes Nikolai Grozni. These words take on special resonance because Grozni lived through a similar revolution in 1989 in his native Bulgaria. Long under domination by strongmen of the Communist Party, Bulgaria endured decades of totalitarian oppression where freedom of expression and assembly were outlawed. Grozni retains many memories of living under such a crushing regime:
As a first-grader he was instructed to keep a diary of gratitude for the great works Georgi Dimitrov had carried out in his behalf. Dimitrov’s body lay preserved like Lenin’s in a megalomaniacal mausoleum across from Communist Party headquarters.
In the ninth grade he was beaten by a school teacher for playing jazz on the piano. Jazz, of course, was considered a degenerate, imperialistic, American invention.
Grozni’s relative Iliya Popov spent decades in concentration camps where thousands died and their bodies were fed to pigs.
Growing up in a place where freedom was but a dream would make the new birth of freedom a joyous cause for celebration. Contrast such feelings with those of blasé Americans who tend to view freedom as their birthright and often take it for granted.
If such a danger exists in the way we view freedom, how much greater still is the temptation of Christians to fail to treasure and appreciate the salvation Christ makes possible? Many of us have been saved for so long we have forgotten what is was like to be lost. We see salvation, like freedom, as a given. Of course it would always be there. We forget that an enormous price had to be paid for both. Let the words of Jesus remind us what he has done for us:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
~ Luke 4:18, 19
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