Surrender Pain and Bitterness to God

Elizabeth Sibeko was a person positively shaped by extraordinary hardship and suffering. She and her husband David were deeply involved in the struggle against apartheid, which led to his arrest while trying to flee the country. He was eventually acquitted for lack of hard evidence but faced harassment day and night by the Security Branch.

Life became so unbearable they decided they had to escape. They were arrested 13 times trying to cross Botswana and Zambia. Sleeping under trees for six weeks, they trudged by day and were terrified at night by elephants, rhinos, hippos, and even once a lion. They finally reached Tanzania and eventually moved to the United States to represent the Pan African Congress at the UN.

At one point David had to go back to Tanzania to attend to PAC business. When the Muldersgate scandal broke, David Sibeko as a journalist with inside data was pursued by both government security agents and certain dissenters in the liberation movement. When he was eventually assassinated, he left behind four children and a wife whose lives were wrecked.

Elizabeth cried and cried to the Lord asking why, why, why. She could not understand why people would kill someone who never hurt anyone and had always worked for good. She turned her back on God, but God had not turned his back on her. Through a UN ambassador and his wife, she was brought back to Christ and the church and surrendered to God her pain and bitterness. Eventually, after 28 years in exile, she was able to return to South Africa and live out her life in reconciliation towards others.

Good or bad, we are all products of our histories. Elizabeth Sibeko’s story explains the courage, graciousness, and determination etched into her face, features, and faith. When we surrender our pain and bitterness to God, he can “cause everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

Reflect

Are there things in your life that are causing you pain and bitterness? Are you willing to ask God to take the pain and bitterness and transform it into good for his purposes? Bring those things to him in prayer today.