Half the Sky

I had no idea what I was delving into when I opened the first pages of this book.  My aunt had recommended this read as she knew the journey I was on.  A journey of becoming more globally aware, as well as joining in with efforts to make a difference.  It's a package for me.  Awareness and difference making.  It's also a step by step process, because I really have no idea where this is taking me, only that the Spirit has spoken with clarity that I am to follow His lead into this unknown.

This is the first book that has so profoundly disturbed me, that I was more than halfway into it before I truly committed myself to finishing it.  Up until then, with each closing of a chapter, I would question if I should or even could continue. The roads of oppression I "traveled" on were unspeakably difficult for my being to navigate.

Women being horrifically beaten by men who believed it to be "their right"... girls as young as 8 being sold into brothels to be playthings for men... mothers living with the "leprous" medical condition of fistulas as a result of obstructed labor and lack of medical intervention...baby girls being killed at birth simply because they were girls...the brutal practice of female genital mutilation...a culture of shaming, belittling, and controling women, and the list goes on ad infintim. Each and every oppressive story broke into my comfortable, safe world and messed with my mind.  The question begged to be asked.  "Why am I reading this?"  "For what purpose?"  And the answer came back succinctly and simply in the form of a question I'm becoming familiar with--"Are you willing to be disturbed?"

Which is why I continued reading and am now expounding on what I have learned.  Because I am willing to be disturbed, not for the sole sake of being disturbed, but that I might, even in the minutest possible way, be part of the solution these women desparately need.

I found, seemingly hidden behind these dark stories of brutality and pain... hope.  And it always started with one person.  One person willing to get involved.  One person risking it all to help another.  One person giving money to put even a dent in poverty.  I read of the powerful force of education in liberating women, one by one.  One microloan equals one female entrepreneur equals one spouse learning to respect.   Story after redemptive story gripped me.  Courageous, enduring women, slowly emerging from a culture of oppression.   

And I knew that I wanted to be part of the "one".