Paul Long's Ramblings

Another wonderful piece from Jill Carattini Dead People Walking In war-torn relationships of Northern Uganda, forgiveness is complicated.  Betty was a teenager when her village was raided by the Lord's Resistance Army, a rebel army known for its brutal tactics and widespread human rights violations.  She was kidnapped as a sex slave for a commander and ordered to commit callous acts of violence as a child soldier, until gradually she was broken and became an active member of the LRA. After six years of bloodshed, however, Betty managed to escape, running across the country to freedom.  But coming home would not be a simple matter of returning.  She had committed violence against the very people she hoped to rejoin.  Her own guilt and shame was as palpable as the mistrust and anger of her village.  In her absence, two of her own brothers had been killed by the same army Betty fought alongside. In the midst of such loss, with so many permanent scars, ...

Did not find the normal disclaimer that I cannot reproduce this without written permission etc, so hope it's okay to do so :-) I found this piece by Margaret Manning from Ravi Zacharias Ministry personally challenging. Brother Lawrence's book, "The practice of the Presence of God" is one of the books that have impacted my life so the discovery that he hated his kitchen work but yet did it joyfully has not just made me admire him more but made me sit and rethink again how I think about faithfulness. The article too has made me sit and think on various aspects of "potential" and vocation (I am once again re-reading Gordon Smith's "Courage and Calling" because I am in a new mentoring triad) Anyway, do read the article below first! I am still reflecting on the article and so I have more questions than even tentative thoughts so all I have done is highlighted in red some of the questions I am trying to think more deeply about. The Heroism of t...