As someone that wants to be a world changer and history maker, I have learned a great deal about sacrifice, response to hardship and challenge, forgiveness, redemption and restoration from the life of Nelson Mandela.
He was an extraordinary human being, yet just like you and I, a human being. Unlike most of us, he chose a more difficult path. One of fighting for what he believed in through grace, perseverance, forgiveness and a focus on more than just himself. We may all have our opinions of how he wasn't there for his family, how he started a great deal of unrest and violence before being put in prison, etc. I think sometimes we hold people in the public eye to a standard of never making mistakes and having to have every area of life figured out. However, the one thing I love about Madiba's life is that he owned the mistakes he made, that he reminded us that it's what we do with our mistakes and how we rise again that matters, not whether or not we make a mistake, because we always will.
I'm humbled by the example he set not only politically, racially and justly. More than that, I'm challenged by how everything he accomplished was not merely political but rather how it was his life style, his way of life. So often I find it easy to be a certain way in a program or a specific setting, like we have a switch we can flick on and off. Yet, the example this great man set for us was one in which your way of life, your standards, beliefs and convictions should be the driving force, not a program or specific setting.
As Christians, we read about how we are to forgive, love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, but if we're truly honest and vulnerable, that is probably what we do the least. Caring for people around us how we wish to be cared for. Loving the way we wish to be loved. The list most certainly goes on, but the thing is that we need to pause for a moment and really think about how often we display those. Are they really our way of life? I'm challenged by this and I love how The Lord uses different things to challenge and rebuke us. I know for me Nelson Mandela has always been a man I would have loved to meet, to ask him where he got the strength, boldness and courage to pursue freedom for all men. He is a man I believe understood the Scriptures in a way that I most certainly want to. A man that lived out his convictions and didn't just merely talk about them.
So today, on this bitter sweet day, I'm thankful for a life well lived. For a man that was willing to even die for what he believed in. For a man that forever changed the lives of many of my friends and family. For a man that created a place in the world for young men, just like my husband. For a man that have all people, but especially Black Africans, a leader to look up to, respect, and model life after. For a man that will never be forgotten. For a man that I get to tell my children and grandchildren about. For a man that we were blessed to see live out his convictions. Madiba's legacy will forever live on, may we never forget and never stop telling the story of this life well lived.
