144,000 Minutes

On January 22, 2011, at about 5:30 in the evening, I left the Bountiful Events Center in Utah.  I'd just been through a 21 hour audition process that had begun 2 days before.  I was exhausted in every possible sense.  I wasn't sure if I had landed the part I so very much wanted.  I still don't know.  That was 71 days ago.  Now, today, March 27, it's 100 days until the opening night of The Nauvoo Pageant.  I am next to desperate to know if I will don a costume and join the ranks on stage that night.  I have to wait...but I know I'll know some time in the next 100 days which side of the curtain is mine.

100 days is a significant time period.  My friend, Anna knows this too well.  Her baby boy spent his first 100 days of pre-mature life in NICU.   Born 13 weeks too soon.  He weiged less than 3 pounds.  He's alive because he wants to be.  Anna says, 'all bad things come to an end.'  And she's right.  They do end.  And then more bad things, sometimes happen.  But, so much wonderful hppens, too.  How much happened for them in 100 days.  



 
Les Cent Jours.  That's what Napoleon would've called it.  Matter of fact that's what The Prefect of Paris did call it when referring to Napoleon's 100 Days leading to disaster.  It was campaign that included The War of the Seventh Coalition, and ultimately Waterloo, which of course resulted in his being declared an outlaw by The Congress of Vienna.  And then finally...exile to Saint Helena.  An awful lot was crowded into 100 days for poor ol' Napoleon.

Over the course of 100 days in 1994, 800,000 people were murdered in the small east African country of Rwanda.  April 6 through mid-July.  800,000 people...20% of the nation's population.  What could possibly precipitate a genocide of such immense magnitude in just 100 days?  The answer:  cultural and ethnic differences.  Elementary yet incredibly complex.  Hutu and Tutsi.  Tribes and  Beliefs clashing.
For 91 days, 8 women crouched and huddled silently together in a tiny hidden bathroom in a Rwandan hill village.  One of them, Immacule' Ilibagiza lived to share her 100 days.  She could hear the men, who just hours before slaughtered her family, taunting her on the other side of the wall.  They told her they could smell her...and they would find her and finish what they had started.  In that bathroom, no more than 3 feet long and 4 feet wide, taking turns with the other women, sitting on the toilet to sleep, she discovered God.  She found atonement and forgiveness through Him.  How do you find forgiveness and compassion and mercy when your family is wiped clean from the earth?  When your friends and village and school and home is gone?  Brutally taken in a holocaust of the heart?  She wrote a book...you should read it.  "Left to Tell: Discovering God In The Midst of the Rwandan Holocaust." 
She describes her 100 days. 

"But I came to learn that God never shows us something we aren't ready to understand. Instead, He lets us see what we need to see, when we need to see it. He'll wait until our eyes and hearts are open to Him, and then when we're ready, He will plant our feet on the path that's best for us...but it's up to us to do the walking."

She describes her brother,  Damascene's, final minutes on earth. He didn't negotiate or beg for mercy.  Instead, he felt sorry for them...killing people like it was child's game.  He was ready to see God...could feel Him and was ready to walk with Him.  He told them to ask forgiveness before it was too late for them.

The pinnacle moment for me, in HER 100 days is when she heard God's voice tell her,  "Faith moves mountains, if faith were easy there would be no mountains."   That's the straight quote, but I say it all the time.  Faith ain't for sissys.  Faith can move the mountains, but if faith were easy, the mountians would all be gone.  Those of us willing to confront the adversity of life are willing to climb the mountains...move the mountains...and leave the mountains behind us. 

And, there in 144,000 minutes sit opportunities, blessings, lessons, pain, ache, love, and joy. 

My 100 days is simply waiting for the opening night of The Nauvoo Pageant.  I have not deluded myself into thinking that it will be easy.  The test of patience and endurance is quite real to me.  But, I'm not planning any major offensive movements in France...or anywhere.  My children are well and whole.  And I am home...surrounded by my family.  Perhaps my 100 days is the path for me to walk.  I think God put my feet here and I'm ready to walk it. 

I am led by faith.