How Long? and Unbroken

On a long run a few days ago I couldn’t stop thinking of Louis Zamperini.  I had finished Unbroken a week earlier, and I absolutely loved it.  Turns out there’s a reason it was a #1 New York Times Bestseller.  Part of that is Louis’ incredible story of survival and endurance and sheer luck.  And the other part is Laura Hillenbrand.  Her writing is phenomenal.  She whisks you away into the land of World War II and the Japanese Zero, survival 101, labor camps, and vicious tyrants.  I think the rhythm of her writing is what I enjoyed most.  Before the war Louis Zamperini was one of the fastest milers in the world, and somehow Laura Hillenbrand made the training, competition, and dream of Olympic track and field circa 1930 matter to this 35 year old mother of 3. 

On my run I considered how little endurance most of us have—myself included.  How many of us really have what it takes mentally, emotionally, and physically to endure trial, pain, hardship, suffering, hopelessness the way Zamperini did? 

With the children, I am reading aloud to them from my grown up Bible.  And today I read to them Joseph’s journey: Genesis 38-42—from the coat, to the dreams, to the pit and betrayal, to slavery, to false imprisonment, to interpretations and people forgetting him, to finally, one day, after waiting and waiting, Joseph stands before the King of Egypt and is rescued.  Suddenly he is appointed second in command over all Egypt—a prisoner—a nobody—probably dirty and smelly and hungry having been in jail for so long—He is given a ring, robe, a chariot, wives, and names his firstborn Manassah, saying, “God has made me forget all my trouble and all my father’s household.” 

While he was ridiculed by gypsies and languishing in jail for a crime he did not commit, he must have thought: “How long?  When will I be vindicated?  When will this all make sense?  When will relief come?’

My children felt it acutely.  How unfair Joseph’s life had been for the last decade!  How sad that an innocent man was imprisoned and unjustly treated.  How horrible that his own brothers would sell him as a slave to a far away land! 

And Louis Zamperini knew that feeling.  Waiting for a ship or a plane to save him as he floats adrift the Pacific with no food or water for 47 days.  Arriving to the first prison camp, transferred to the next, and moved to the next.  Beatings every day over and over and over again, starved, humiliated, interrogated, as B29s fly overhead with no provisions or help or rescue. 

What trial are you facing that you need supernatural endurance to overcome?  How long, O Lord?

When will days of tenderly serving and loving your newly adopted child shatter the hard shell of abandonment and rejection?  When will wombs open, and when will husbands and wives lay down their weapons and say they need each other?  When will neighbors become friends and coworkers cease to be competitors?  When will a new job finally come, and when will the atheist turn towards his Maker?  When will his sickness be completely healed, and when will I finally be able to rest?

We ask these questions over and over, and it’s ok to ask because God can handle our whens.  Don’t you think Joseph asked time and time again of God in that prison cell: “WHEN?”

Our job is to HANG ON and NOT GIVE UP.  Do we have what it takes to hang on, gripping for dear life, to capture a bird in our bare teeth, to keep fighting, to stay positive, when our toenail is hammered bloody, when the bullies pound our face day after day, when we pee in prison cells and eat maggoty rice, when we are wrongly accused by vicious vindictive people, and when we’re forgotten by those that we hoped would remember?

Endure. 

One day you will be rescued.  You will be called forth from that prison cell and given a signet ring, a robe, a chariot, and a new life.  With God there are no accidents.