Second in a series

The story of Immaculee Ilibagiza has stayed with me. Sitting in on an interview with her at St. John’s University, Jamaica, had a strong impact on me. But even more than the interview, I was impressed and moved by her book “Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust” (Hay House Inc.).

During the Rwandan holocaust, the time when the Hutus were trying to wipe out all the Tutsis in Rwanda, Immaculee’s mother, father and brother were killed. Immaculee spent 90 days with six other women hiding in a bathroom that was four-feet-by-six-feet. In these seemingly impossible conditions, Immaculee grew in faith, hope and love. I find this astounding. Her experience is a startling revelation that God can be found anywhere.

In my freshman honors philosophy course at St. John’s University, I have the students read and discuss Victor Frankl’s classic “Man’s Search for Meaning.” In it, he relates how, as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, he found that those who survived did so because they had some reason to live. He found that those who died had no meaning that was sufficient to keep them alive. They had lost all reasons to stay alive and so they died.

This discovery led Frankl to create a new method of therapy which he called logotherapy. Simply put, it is helping patients find meaning in their lives. Cramped in that bathroom with six other women, Immaculee found a meaning that has changed her life. That meaning is God. What could have been a destructive experience became a life-giving experience.

In the interview at St. John’s University, Immaculee spoke about how her life has changed since she has begun to tell her story both on television and in public meetings. She said:

“After I speak many people come to me and tell me their personal stories, they cry with me. Those are the things I love the most. To feel like now I’m part of the country, of the culture. I’m learning, I’m talking to Americans. I love it. Just to hear the stories of people changing, that just really touched my heart. When I was first speaking, one lady who was a holocaust survivor came to me and told me, ‘I never let go of the anger I had since then, until now that I see you. If you can tell me you can forgive, then I can believe you. Then I can do it.’ This is a lifetime for someone to be able to tell you that. She was crying and shaking…I am speaking my experiences. You don’t expect people to come up with those sudden decisions and it has been overwhelming to see what is going on and what happened. I really love it. I feel it’s a privilege. I feel it’s a chance in life God gave me and I feel like maybe that’s why I had to go through what I had to go through. Because this is so fulfilling, and, if I had to go through this to inspire millions of people, I hope, then maybe what I went through, is OK.”

Reflecting on her comments, I am embarrassed. I am thinking of the times I took offense at something that was said to me or about me and nurtured hurt feelings. Immaculee’s capacity to forgive puts me to shame.

I believe deeply in St. Paul’s statement that for those who love God all things work together unto good. God can draw good out of anything, even sin. I do not believe that everything that happens is good. I don’t believe that fatal diseases that inflict children and others are good but I do believe that God’s love can draw good out of any human experience. It seems that God has drawn from Immaculee’s experiences not only good that has helped her but through her has helped and is helping others.

I am touched by Immaculee’s ability to look at her own sufferings in terms of how those sufferings might help others. This seems to be a rare gift that has been bestowed on her. Often, sufferings cause us to withdraw, to become preoccupied with ourselves, to be jealous of others who are not asked to carry the crosses we bear. That does not seem to have happened to Immaculee. Rather, her attitude toward her sufferings has broadened her, has opened her to others. Instead of turning in toward her self in self-pity, Immaculee has reached out to help others. She is using her sufferings, terrible as they were, to benefit others. This is a profoundly Christian thing to do. She is teaching all of us.