Meditation

A MEDITATION BY A CONTEMPORARY KAREN CHURCH LEADER

The Karen are a Burmese ethnic tribal group of 6 to 7 million people, 40% of whom are Christian. They have suffered continual harassment from the Burmese army for many years, and large numbers of them now live in large refugee camps along the Thai-Burmese border. Many of the villages devastated by the recent hurricanes and subsequent flooding were Karen.


They call us a displaced people,
But praise God, we are not misplaced.
They say they see no hope for our future,
But praise God our future is as bright as the promises of God.
They say they see that the life of our people is a misery,
But praise God our life is a mystery.
For what they say is what they see,
And what they see is temporal.
But ours is the eternal.
All because we put ourselves
In the hands of the God we trust.

Gill Schärer