12 Years a Slave: A Painful Truth



When my husband Anthony and I left the movie theater after seeing 12 Years a Slave this past Saturday evening, I KNEW I had to blog about this movie.

Even though I don't feel like I have much to say - that hasn't already been said - I feel like I MUST speak. I MUST write.

Because 12 Years a Slave shook me to my core in way that hasn't happened in a very long time.

I left the theater thinking, I've got to tell THE WORLD to go see this movie.

Four days later, I do have a few more thoughts. So here you go...

 I. US slavery was a brutal, evil part of our country's history:

The US slave trade is said to have begun in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia (my parents' home-state). For over 250 years, human beings were sold as cattle for the purpose of financial gain for their slave masters.

12 Years a Slave handles this period of time with fervor and brutal honesty. It is very painful to watch, but it is an authentic portrayal of one man's story. It also uncovers a more obscure aspect of slavery -- free black men and women who were kidnapped and forced into slavery.

Some have labeled the violence in the movie "excessive." However, the US slave trade was excessive. It was brutally violent. It was vulgar and dehumanizing - intentionally so.
II. The Bible was misused by many slaveowners to subjugate their slaves

 The key word here is misused.

 It was painful to watch the scenes where slaveowners misquoted the Bible. And I wondered, how could someone misuse this life-giving book? How could they use the Bible to justify so much destruction and pain? How did they misinterpret it so profoundly - with such wicked intentions?

I have no answers here. I only know that some people will go to any lengths for money, power and social standing. Even to the depths of distorting and prostituting my Father's beautiful and inerrant Word.


III. God can use our deepest pain for His glory

 Warning: Plot-spoiler ahead...

 Based on the true story of Solomon Northup - beautifully portrayed by actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave ends with a short description of Solomon's life after his rescue from slavery. After spending a horrific 12 years in slavery, Solomon was said to have joined the abolitionist movement and also to have aided the escape of slaves through the Underground Railroad*.

Would Solomon have become an anti-slavery activist without his experience as a slave? Maybe. Maybe not. But his story reminds me that God can use our deepest pain to grow us up, to take us to higher heights, to use us for His purposes and His glory.

The universal truth here? God never, ever wastes pain.

He didn't waste Solomon Northup's pain.

And He won't waste yours either.



* The Underground Railroad was a covert network of people and places that assisted fugitive slaves as they escaped enslavement in US southern states.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Ambassador: His Rise, Fall and Rise Again

Image
I recently began a Facebook Group called "A Pastor's Wife's Garden" with the goal of connecting hearts with other pastor's wives like myself. The idea for this group came totally from the Lord one day while I watched a recording of an interview on CBN. The topic of this interview: William Branch, also known as The Ambassador, also known as Duce, and his wife discussing the challenge of his emotional affair with another woman. To give a little backstory, Duce is a Christian hip hop artist that co-founded and led Cross Movement, a rap group that took the Christian world by storm in 1996. All original founding members, including Duce, grew up in Philadelphia. Having earned a Masters degree in Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary -- graduating with honors, by the way -- he began co-pastoring Epiphany Fellowship Church, a growing and vibrant multi-ethnic church in Philly. That is, until he fell into this emotional affair. At that point Duce was asked to leav
Read more

Five Things Not to Say to Adoptive Parents

Image
The Hendricks Clan "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Did you grow up hearing that adage? I don't think I reached age ten before I realized how false that saying is. The scars of sticks and stones heal with time. The scars of hurtful words? Many of us will take our share of those scars to our graves. If you have adopted, you've heard your share of ill-timed/insensitive questions and comments. Many will come from the lips of perfect strangers. This can be annoying, but in the end, feels rather harmless. Yet sometimes the offenses come from the people closest to us -- parents, grandparents, siblings, long-time friends. Some of those words have left scars on your soul. And maybe on the souls of your child. This post is not only for those of us that have adopted. This post is for our family members, our close friends, our fellow church and community members. This post is for our loved ones who may be very happy for us, b
Read more

The Shooting of Michael Brown: What I Know for Sure

Image
It's been exactly two weeks since Michael Brown , age 18, was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.  Other than a few discussions at home with my family, I haven't talked much about this volatile situation. I've wanted to share about it here in Deep Waters , but I've wanted to speak intelligently about it. There's just so much I don't know about this case right now. And then I received an email from a sweet sister-friend that told me she'd checked my blog for my reaction to the Ferguson crisis. She encouraged me to "weigh-in" here, and I knew I needed to break my silence. I feel like I did when I wrote about the Trayvon Martin crisis back in May 2012 in "Our Sons Are Trayvon." I feel the way I did when I wrote about the verdict in the Zimmerman trial back in July 2013 in "Zimmerman Found Not Guilty/The Church Found Guilty" . I feel like there's so much I don't know. I wasn
Read more