Sunday, March 11, 2007

The Ugliness of AIDS & The Beauty of Love


I want to honor a courageous woman named Loreto who has AIDS and is currently living at a hospice center in Johannesburg, South Africa. I met her last summer and it was an encounter I will never forget.

As I walked into the nondescript room where Loreto was resting, I was struck by her beauty. Despite the outward appearance of skin draped on bones and of arms and legs that looked more like toothpicks, she had an intangible beauty. She was captivating. I couldn’t look away. As we introduced ourselves and began our conversation, I noticed that she would grimace and rub her motionless legs from time to time. Clearly she was in pain most of the time. She was sitting propped up by her scrawny arm wearing a stocking hat that seemed ten sizes too big. She was a young woman, only 24 years old. As I gazed at her I thought, “She is so young. She should be starting her life not wasting away in a bed preparing for death.” I took a sharp breath in and fought to hold back tears. I was suddenly irrationally angry. I wanted AIDS to be something I could kick, punch, scratch at and beat to death. This kind of injustice made me furious and at the same time painfully sad.

Cherie is an American who came to South Africa with her husband to love those who were infected with AIDS. Cherie had been coming to this hospice center for over a year now. She came often and painted the women’s toenails, gave them foot and back massages and listened to their stories. She grew close to each woman and inevitably arranged their funerals too. Loving these women and loosing them one by one was and is excruciatingly painful for her, but she loves them too much to stop coming.

Cherie had brought us to meet Loreto. After entering the room, Cherie noticed a tattered Bible sitting next to her bed. “Wow, you have read this so much it is almost worn out. I am curious what is your favorite story in the Bible?” Without skipping a beat and with incredible confidence Loreto said, “Job.” “ I just want to honor God and give him glory through my suffering just like Job,” she said. My mouth dropped to the floor and my emotion came close to the surface. I felt suddenly confused. How in the world is Job’s story encouraging? Isn’t Job the book of the Bible we get in and out of a quickly as possible for fear that his suffering might rub off on us?

Loreto continued to explain that she loved Jesus and even when the pain is too much and she feels like giving in to death, she remembers God’s faithfulness to Job. She remembers that God made the heavens and controls the rain. She knows that God may choose to heal her and to allow her to walk again, but even if he doesn’t and her short life is only marked by the painful disease of AIDS, God will still be sovereign. He will still be glorified and he will still love her. It took everything in me to remain calm and peaceful. Can she really believe what she is saying? How does one still believe in the goodness and love of God when you are in excruciating pain and dying from AIDS?

The only part of Job I could relate to was his angry bitter rants against his intense suffering. Job was angry—bitter. He lashed out with violent words and a cry of injustice!! How could God give such unbearable suffering to some and let the wicked live? Job rode the emotion of deep disappointment, of intense bitterness and unthinkable despair. That Job seemed to understand the tragedy of being told you are dying of AIDS at 24, of being confined to a bed in a hospice center with death the final destination. That Job I understood. That kind of anger felt more natural to me. It seemed to make sense, but that wasn’t the Job Loreto was talking about.

Loreto was talking about a Job who trusted completely in God’s sovereignty and believed in God’s loving character despite his circumstances. Somehow in the midst of that intense pain God showed up and Job-and Loreto- changed. They stopped being angry and learned how to be loved by a God who is in control. They seemed to understand that maybe, just maybe, their lives weren’t their own. She had a deep understanding of giving up her life to honor Him. She loved him. Loreto said that God and her had fallen in love, a deep kind of real committed love. The kind that grows out of great pain, perseverance and deep despair. She trusted him with her life totally and completely. She said he was good and nothing in her circumstances could dissuade her. In this painful place God had given her part of himself and that intimacy had given her strength and courage. She may never know why God allowed her to have AIDS but, she said in never knowing she will still love him. That is monumental—the stuff that rocks me to my core and makes me wonder if I could be that intimate with God. Could I know deep despair and still believe that God is good and that he loves me? Could I still love him? I know Loreto does.

As I stood there and listened to this frail young woman talk about the glory of God even in her desperate pain, I realized whose beauty I was really seeing. The Lord was there in that moment and it was indeed holy and captivatingly beautiful. Truly the two had become one.

AIDS is a terrible disease killing millions just like Loreto. Who will hear their stories, massage their aching backs and remember them when they die? I know Jesus would, I know Cherie is, will you?

To get involved in Minneapolis contact Open Arms: http://www.openarmsmn.org/ or internationally you can contact World Vision: www.worldvision.org