How does Her Shadow look to you?

My husband and I decided to watch a movie that was recommended as a colourful, funny sort of comedy. So we decided to watch it. I am not the kind of person who watches movies I know nothing about, I don't like wierd stuff, violence, nudity, or strong language which rules out most movies. So when this movie started getting a little wierd we turned it off. But not before I caught a glimpse of the very real reality that millions of Indians live with, everyday. True I am no stronger to the stories of the dalits in India. I taught Indians English and have a soft heart for the Indian people, but seeing it again on tv, somethng just really stuck with me. Though it was a movie portrayal of a woman simply washing the floor, it was more then real. It was what faces millions of men, women and children everyday in the poorest communities in India.

Have you heard of the Dalits or the Untouchables? The sanskrit word Dalit means broken, oppressed, crushed. Dalits were considered by upper castes to be outside the Hindu Varna or caste system. They were considered as Panchama or the fifth group, beyond the upper caste proposed fourfold division of the Indian people. This discriminations and outright injustice, and untruth has resulted in the enslavement of millions. Today, many dalits are sold and trafficked for child labour and for prostitution.

I do not wish to debate the state of the caste system or the state of the many dalits that commit crime etc but what I do wish to debate, is the value of human life and the very real fact that each of us are hand made by a Loving God. Each one of us is special, Yeshua shed His blood for every single person on earth and that fact overrules the cruel caste system embedded in false religion. 

Our Messiah died for the broken, the oppressed and for every single person on this planet, so that we could know how truly valuable we are. Tonight in prayer, the suffering in India was again laid deeply on my heart by the Holy spirit. I cannot ignore this and do I not wish us to be ignorant rather let us pray together for the suffering tonight. This scripture like a Booming Voice screams out in my heart, let justice roll on like a river and righteousness like an ever-lasting stream.

Let us then gather by the river and let the hurting know, 

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
    and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
    nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
    a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
    he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53: 2 - 5 

The suffering of this world looks desperate but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that because One Man came to earth, spread His Palms and shed HIs blood, we can know joy and we can know peace. May the "untouchables" of India come to know that there is a God who lives who longs to touch their lives in the deepest way possible, His name is Yeshua Messiah, Jesus Christ...