Tuesday 3 November 2015

An Open Letter to cancerFighter, Braveheart Lamtsala Sangtam



Dear Lamtsa, 

I wish for a kinder circumstance, and for better words to come, and come even easier to say to you. There was a minute that I was writing these sentiments as a private mail to you after reading your status-update on Facebook. 

Then, there came this thought: perhaps offering this letter in the open would somehow carry the winds of your story to the people, friends and strangers alike; narrate to them a piece of your tale of courage, and plant lessons of faith wherever they fall, on arid creag beds and rich loam alike. 

Those wonderful lessons to serve to instruct our feeble lives with your warrior's self: she whose name was forged in the furnace to burn blessed meanings into our minds and hearts. 

Lessons from you about what it truely means to fight real battles, learn what it means to grin genuine grins in the face of a terrible, terrifyingly blind adversary, and learn what it means to be a true conqueror whose struggle opened eyes. 

Lessons from your fire through which each of us would grow to learn better about love, life, and other blessed mysteries so that they would come to burn fiercely throughout our lives—offering warmth in times of harsh cold and shining down comforting light in times of darkness. 

Lips and hearts in Nagaland and beyond are praying for you in acts, in faith, and in acts of faith. And here I am too as if worthiness clothes me. As inadequate as my person is, allow me to say these words to you: Knowing the kind of life and filth that I live, you should be the one praying for me that I would come to have the glorious faith you burn on, the bottomless strength you carry, and the melting cheer of indomitable hope that you shine out. 

Seeing the depth of goodness,  the strength and God in you, our hearts are broken in a new, wonderful and beautiful ways. Please then, break our hearts further! Please then, shatter them into a thousand pieces until we become beautiful again!

Frailty and failing are my person, and I feed on transgression and wear weakness for clothes. Even the slightest upheaval in my life troubles my knees and leaves my arms weak. 

But you, look at you. Look at you. I should be seeking your prayers instead—to live the way you live, to stand and fight the way you fight and grip God with the strength you grip Him—and how! 

Yet, if we seek the same grace and the faith that you have, it also means as much that our hearts stand with you—even if from a great distance we can only watch you fighting your soul-sapping fight. 

I cannot imagine what fortitude your loved ones, especially your parents, relatives, and your partner, Mhathung Odyuo, must be mustering every day. God bless their hearts. God bless their hearts. 

It is only so much we can say. It's only so much we can do. 

With embarrassment at my inadequacy and failings, and as if I were even a Christian by plain definition, I join the many true believers in Nagaland and beyond who are clawing at God for you. If the prayers of my faithless self even counts at all, even if my prayers flow from a mouth dripping with sin, please do know that your name is being spoken in my small prayers. 

Return in victory soon. 

God, life, healing, and every blessed mystery to you, Lamtsa. 

In Jesus Christ's wonderful name, Amen.


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