Will you speak out for people entirely unlike you?

I’m half way through reading ‘I am Malala,’ the famous book by the Nobel Prize winning girl who spoke out for education and was shot by the Taliban.

It gives a lot of insight into the lives of Pakistani peasants in the decades following the September 11, 2001 attack.

Malala’s father was a man who courageously spoke out against the Taliban, holding truth above cowardice. Malala records that he used to carry the following poem with him in his pocket. It is by Martin Niemöller, who had lived in Nazi Germany. It has really challenged me.

First they came for the communists,

And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists,

And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,

And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,

And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,

And I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,

And there was no one left to speak for me.

Be Brave Little Piglet!

As kids, we had the book Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day. At some point in the book, little Piglet is swept away by the wind. Pooh cries out to him: “Be brave little Piglet!” as Piglet finds himself alone, high in the sky.

When we were young, mum often used this phrase on us as we were facing something we were afraid of. ‘Be brave little Piglet,’she’d say to us as we walked, with trepidation into the unknown.

The phrase stuck in my mind, and I found myself repeating it, even as an adult, during some of the most difficult times of my life. But, somehow, it didn’t help. Instead of feeling brave, I felt lost and small; a little Piglet in the midst of a storm.

It was during a particularly rough time a couple of years ago that the problem with this mantra suddenly became clear. If I was seeing myself as a ‘little Piglet,’ I would feel lost, and small, like a child wanting to run back to the safety of their mummy.

What I needed to focus on was the truth of who I was. In Christ I was more like a warrior Princess than a small, weak piglet. I could be brave, because I had Christ in me; His power; His armour.

So now, when I face battles, I face them as a warrior, not as a defenceless Piglet. And the cry to ‘be brave,’ is much more achievable.