Yesterday my friend and fellow blogger Trevor posted an article in the New York Times Magazine that caused me to totally scrap what I was writing and go another direction. This week we are talking about life arising from death. This what we celebrate about the resurrection of Jesus. Death never has the final word. While darkness and misery surround us, they are never strong enough to block out the light of life.

Even after a brutal winter here in Texas (well, brutal for us) flowers are blooming and trees are budding. It is amazing to see how life always seems to win.

Yet, there are points in history where we are not sure if we can ever recover. I think of times like the holocaust or 9-11 where it did not seem imaginable to go on. Yet, we did and hope emerged.

One such time is being remembered right now as the 20th anniversary of the genocide in the country of Rwanda is upon us. I was a young teenager at the time and didn’t really understand what happened, but as I read back through what happened during this genocide, I can’t believe I lived through something like that and didn’t know about it. During the genocide, 1 million people died at the hands of their friends and neighbors.

Can you imagine something happening like this here? What if your neighbor knocked on your door and murdered your family because they were fooled by their government that they needed to die? Would you ever forgive that neighbor?

This article presents revealing photos of perpetrators and their victims. Most of these pictures show men who murdered the families and husbands of these women.

Over the last few years small groups of Hutu and Tutsi have been brought together for counseling and an attempt at reconciliation. With incredible bravery and humility, many have asked forgiveness and some have offered it.

This is a level of humanity I never new could exist. Sometimes it is easy to doubt God exists sometimes and the bible can be hard to interpret leading to doubts. But, for me when life breaks through such incredible tragedy and deliberate hatred – it has to make you wonder if we have a creator who will never give up. That people’s hearts can change to where they can forgive someone who murdered their family right in front of them – then pose for a picture to prove it – says a lot about how life can be snatched from the jaws of death.

But, don’t take my word for it. Check it out. And, tell me what you think.

Love wins eventually. These pictures prove it.

For the full article, click here.

For some info on the Rwandan genocide, click here.

For a similar project from a few years ago, click here.