“I will
rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed
me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,
As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself
with her jewels.” –Isaiah 61:10
Garments of Salvation…robes of righteousness; today those
garments looked like colorful West African fabric dresses and head wraps and
vibrant jewelry adorning women who for so long have felt ugly and dirty, but
today looked utterly radiant! Today was the first “Dress Ceremony” in the wards
for the ladies with obstetric fistulas. I don’t pretend to have extensive
medical knowledge, but I have picked up a few things living in a hospital. This
condition is basically a hole that is caused by prolonged and difficult
childbirth, most often where the baby dies…so we’re looking at intensely long
childbirth, then giving birth to a baby that is already dead, and then having
damage in your body from the childbirth so that you constantly leak urine, which
results in being shunned by family and friends because you’re always seen as smelly
and dirty.
I can’t imagine. I don’t want to imagine.
This is the everyday
reality for these ladies, but today we celebrated three such ladies leaving
behind that life for a brand new one! They came to the ship, had surgery, and
are now clean and healed. Today, they didn’t just stand up in front of the
crowd to give testimonies to their healing and God’s goodness with healed and whole bodies, they stood up there dressed as royalty…the royalty that they truly are
as daughters of the King of Kings! After their surgery they are given
beautiful, colorful dresses, head wraps, necklaces, earrings, everything Mercy
Ships can do to help them shed the idea that they are broken, dirty, unlovely
and leave them in no doubt of their beauty, value, and radiance.
As each lady
stood up and gave her testimony…stories of attempted and failed surgeries, of
leaking urine constantly for the past nineteen years…tears began to flow from
the ladies and from those of us listening as well. Every single one of the
ladies at some point in her attempt to give thanks to the doctors and to God,
eventually just said there were no words to express such thankfulness and
started singing! Every one of them! No words could express the amount of joy
and thankfulness flowing from their hearts, but somehow adding a melody got
them just a bit closer!
What a lovely expression of gratitude. The doctor who
performed their surgeries got up and prayed over the ladies as each was given a
bag filled with things to remind her of her own beauty and God’s beauty – soap,
lotion, a mirror, and a Bible. This morning we were all wrapped so comfortingly
and beautifully in robes of righteousness and garments of salvation…and we just
had to dance!
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| The ladies got to come in dancing and leave dancing down the hall! It was a parade! |
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