Principles – Mandela – 27/2/2016

   In the former article I talked about some ideas on resisting despair. I talked about Louis Braille who challenged despair by his deep faith in his life’s goal. Today, I am going to tell the story of another character that fiercely fought storms of despair in the rough sea of life and achieved victory due to its relentless hope and dedicated goal. He is “Nelson Mandela”

Mandela: 

   He is the widely-known leader who believed in freedom for all and consecrated his life to achieve his goal. He didn’t lose hope or gave up for the blowing wind of despair that followed him to destroy his hope in a free and dignified life for everyone.

   First wind of despair was represented in Mandela’s birth. He found himself belonging to a racial society, thus he dedicated his life to face racial problems aiming that all people would get justice and freedom. Although it was so hard and may be impossible to do so, he decided to walk the road. He studied law and worked as a lawyer due to his great faith in education and its importance and ability to change people’s life. He started a journey of unstoppable serious work.

   The serious accusations and law cases filed against Mandela could have ruined his hope and shattered his dream, but he has never stopped dreaming .He got a life sentence and stayed in prison for nearly 25 year, but he never abandoned his dreams. When he knew he got a life sentence he said, “I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.” This was the secret of his greatness and his insistence to proceed walking the path no matter what may happen. His greatness has inspired the world and he became the icon of the international campaign for fighting racial discrimination. He left prison to become a leader to his people and a president to his country. He led it from 1994 to 1999 and achieved his life goal by stopping all kinds of discrimination and fighting poverty, ignorance and disease. It is a story of a fighter that taught us a lesson of success made by relentless hope against all kinds of obstacles and all degrees of despair, a hope that can do miracles.

• In weakness, keep friends by your side:

   To face despair you should keep around you friends who bring hope back to your life. They say, sometimes you talk about your despair to a friend yet he talks to you about hope, this friend is all you need. Your hopeful friends are those who rise in your life by their beams of hope when storms of despair come near you. They will help you think positively and remind you of your ability to conquer difficult circumstances. Those friends are usually the ones who knew their way to success and want to help others and encourage them to do the same. They are rare so if you meet one of them, hold him tightly and never let him go. They constitute an irreplaceable strength in your life.

• Above all, when storms of despair approach, raise your head to heaven and ask for God’s Help and call for His Name. Be sure that he will grant you His Help and turn your darkness into light and all your hard times into endless blessings. So, keep walking your life’s path and hold into hope that there will always be a support in your weakness.

Anba Ermiah,

General Bishop& President of the Coptic Orthodox Cultural Center