Find the silver lining in sorrow

In my line of work, I often come across extremely challenging situations of suffering. I’m talking about the young girl who was raped or the young man who has struggled with depression his whole life.

 It is the many families that have experienced the shocking death of a loved one in avoidable circumstances.

Death, illness, abuse, violent crime, rape and other such evils can shatter people’s lives and leave them groping for meaning. How could a loving God allow such suffering? That’s a question that is often in the heart at such times.

 And yet as I’ve sought to show over the last couple of weeks, this broken world we live in is as a result of humans choosing to misuse the gift of free will to bring harm to themselves and others.

Faced with such realities, we can easily decide to be stoic and accept that evil is a necessary part of life. But we can make a different choice.

 King Solomon, the wisest man of his time once wrote, “God has made everything beautiful in it’s time.” In those words lie great hope! If we choose to turn our pain and brokenness to God, He is able to turn even the most hopeless situation into something of great beauty.

In 1980, a hit and run drunk driver killed Candy Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter. The judicial system gave the repeat offender a slap-on-the-wrist sentence. Candy was so pained by this that she founded Madd (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), a lobby group that has had a huge effect in bringing legislation that greatly lowered fatalities due to drunk driving across the US.

Closer to home, Doris Mayoli founded the TWA trust after surviving the traumatic experience of breast cancer. TWA has raised millions of shillings to bring treatment and hope to many poor Kenyans who are suffering from cancer. Another Kenyan heroine, Alice Mwongera founded the Morris Moses foundation after both her husband and brother died due to poor treatment in public hospitals. This foundation continues to play a huge role in lobbying for improved conditions in our public hospitals today.

Frank Mutua founded Freedom Behind Bars after experiencing the incarceration of his brother. This organisation is working with different prisons across the country to create humane conditions for prisoners and help with their rehabilitation.

 Amidst the pain, we went through during the Westgate attack, thousands of ordinary Kenyans went out of their way to donate blood and money  and offer help to the hurting.