You may or may not have picked up on a recent article of news following ISIS' reign of terror in the Middle East-- it wasn't covered much by our Western media, and it isn't likely to gain much attention any time soon as it is one in a hundred of similar violent outbreaks sparked by ISIS daily.
19 women were publicly burned alive in iron cages.Their crime? Refusing to have sex with their captors.
ISIS has been taking women of the Yazidi minority as sex slaves since late in 2013-- for three years these women and their friends, family and neighbors have been under the deadly force of the jihadis. However, their public burning is not the worst of the news. The worst is that the 19 women were burned not simply by ISIS militants, nameless and spiteful. They were murdered by their own husbands.
When my eyes scanned this one word-- husbands-- my heart sank to my feet. Like most women, I have been raised on fairy tales of Disney's Prince Charming, Prince Eric and Hercules. I became a teen with the unbreakable love of Jane Bennett and Mr. Darcy, of Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre. I walked into womanhood amazed by the quiet love shared by my mother and father, and blessed to find the beginnings of that same love within myself.
You see, I've been surrounded by deep set love and respect in a marriage. I have dwelt on Ephesians 5 as I recall the endless list of weddings I've attended, "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loves the church and gave himself up for her." And again in 1 John 3, "There is no greater love than that a man would lay down his life for another." What place is there for this cruelty in love?
I tried to imagine the depth of hate it would take for a husband to drag his young and screaming bride to the center of town, lock her in a barred cage and light her on fire. Then I stopped trying to imagine what how much hate it would take because hate isn't quantifiable.
Hate is the absence of love. It is an all or nothing state of being, there is no middle ground. And this realization not only broke my heart, but it also taught me something. I was baffled-- murderous terrorists have taught me something about love. Of all the things I never thought I would say, this must be high on the list.
In February of 2015 the world received a shocking face-to-face with ISIS as 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded on the beach for their faith. Three days after their death, the brother of two of the beheaded spoke out to thank ISIS for giving them a reason to strengthen their faith. He spoke only of joy, and that this persecution drew them closer to Christ. He spoke of the pride he had in his two brothers (ages 25 and 23) for committing their lives fully to Jesus. He noted, even that his mother said she would invite ISIS militants over for dinner and pray for "God to open their eyes."
Where did this come from? In the face of pure hatred, in the faces of the men who killed his brothers-- her sons-- these two spoke only of love.
I sat on the steps, holding my phone in my hands, staring blankly at the picture of charred cages surrounded by dusty, angry men. My heart was pounding, but I wasn't angry any more. I was trying, desperately, to forgive these men for all the chaos, for all the pain, for all the fear they are spreading in this world. For taking the lives of their wives.
That is when I realized-- these hate filled men had taught me something about love. A portion of I John 3 came to the forefront of my mind, "By this we know love, that [God] laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay our lives down for the brothers."
You see, what place does murder have in love? None. In fact, love is characterized by exactly the opposite-- by sacrificing self for another. As I drove deeper and deeper into the book of I John I was overcome by the message of love spoken there-- a love so deep, so grand, so complete, that there is no room for the bitterness of hate. In fact, it is also written in Scripture that whoever claims to love God, but does not love others, walks in the darkness (paraphrase 1 John 4:20).
I've been cleaning off the shelves of my heart. There are so many boxes in there, it resembles my grandmother's basement, stuffed from floor to ceiling with ominous containers and musty fabric. I have an entire shelf or twenty dedicated to hate-- boxes and boxes of it. One of theme is labeled, boldly, "ISIS." And today I choose to take down that box and add it to the burn pile.
My God is love. My God is forgiveness. And because my God loves, I choose to love these men-- and others like them. Do I stand by their acts? Never. But I, like the sweet woman whose sons were killed on the beach, will choose to say, Please, Lord, open their eyes. Help them to see their unbelief. And, Lord, help me to love.
