Bruised Reeds
September 1995
I just came in from grooming the pansies on my patio. One plant was yellow and dried up, but a two-inch piece was green and valiantly trying to root where it touched the ground. I stuck it in the ground, hoping it will grow and bloom.
While doing that, I recalled one nice Spring day when I was a young girl. I had walked to the farm next door and saw my aunt by her house. She was thinning snap-dragons, pulling up the small, crowded ones. The sun had already wilted some where they lay on the ground. I asked, "Aunt Martha, may I have those flowers?"
Despite her warning that they wouldn't live, I carried the limp seedlings home and gently planted and watered each one. Eventually they burst into a happy display of blooms.
Somehow, recalling that story made me also think of Songmag. Songmag, a Kimyal village girl living in the high mountain valley of Korupun, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, started doing house-work for me when she was 12. Neno, a boy of 15, did laundry and yard work. Village leaders ended Songmag and Neno's employment after a few years, when they stole some things. They were married, turned their lives over to God, and I could see some genuine changes of heart.
The next year, at age 15, Songmag had a baby boy. But something was wrong. She took her baby to Jessie, an Australian nurse who was my colleague. The little boy had no skull from above his ears and brow ridge; only skin covered his brain. Kimyal babies are kept and carried in net-bags lined with leaves, grass and pandanas-leaf rain capes for wind-break and rigidity, so the bag doesn't squeeze the baby too much. But that was scant protection for this baby. Jessie didn't expect him to live more than ten days.
Songmag was heart-broken. Her love for her baby boy cut directly across Kimyal cultural values. Defective, unwanted or twin babies were always thrown into a cold swift river. Songmag was taunted, "Throw the baby into the river. He's no good." She and Neno were told, "It's your fault. It's punishment for stealing. Throw him away." Worse, Songmag was ostracized, the ultimate rudeness to be endured in Kimyal culture. Neno quietly loved and supported his young wife. Day after day I saw her on the trail without a companion and in her gardens with no one working beside her. Always her netbag was on her back, carrying her child. His unprotected brain often caused seizures, and Songmag would rush him to Jessie. Jessie could do little for the baby, but she did try to calm and console Songmag. Incredibly, the baby lived six weeks.
How did these two teenagers carry such a huge burden, withstanding that tremendous cultural pressure? They found their strength in the Lord.
When God asks, "May I have you, may I have your life?" even if we reply, "Yes, but you're not getting much," the Bible still promises, "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice." (Isa. 52:3) Those words reassure me when I feel our culture's sometimes degrading attitudes towards people with disabilities. You know what I mean - those times when you wonder if you have letters across your forehead that spell "unworthy." If your life is in God's hands, He isn't going to throw you in the river, or even leave you to wilt and die in the sun. People may, but "in faithfulness He will bring forth justice" in the end. I don't know about you, but to me, that's a tremendous comfort.
