Good Read: Forgiveness in Betrayal

Through my involvement with a Burundian refugee family, I have come to know Febbie, a native of Rwanda who translates for us. Febbie loves books, and we have exchanged many books over the past few months. She recently gave me a copy of Left to Tell by Immaculee Ilibagiza. The subtitle is "Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust." I read it last week on a six-hour bus ride to Cincinnati.

It was a painful, exhilarating read. Fear, betrayal, hiding from death, piles of rotting corpses in the streets, friends and neighbors turned incomprehensibly to enemies--and yet God. Hypocrisy, mistrust, loneliness, mind-numbing isolation, starvation, lice, bottomless and heart-rending grief--and yet God. And yet God.

This is a book about reality. It touches on the essence of what it means to be human in this broken world and to meet God.

Read it, if you have a chance.