Pain

You truly never know what you will see on any given day in South Africa. Today as I was driving up the twisty mountain road that leads to the Red Hill community, I came upon a man lying in the middle of my lane. I swerved around him and pulled over. I thought surely he had been hit and was dead. But when I called out, he sat up, stumbled to his feet and started mumbling something about the police beating him up last night. At this point he had apparently decided he couldn’t walk any further, so he had just lay down to take a little nap in the road.

He said he lives in Red Hill, so my friend Mzo and I helped him into the car and drove him the rest of the way. He smelled horrible and was clearly under the influence of something. I have no idea whether his police story was true or not, but either way, this man was hurting. And I felt very discouraged, because his story is but one of many seemingly hopeless cases of people enslaved by poverty, addiction and other social ills.

In the big picture, I know that God is in control and understands the pain and suffering that ravage the world around us. But at eye level, it sure is tough to face sometimes.