I recently saw Les Miserables with
my husband. It is a wonderful, heart
wrenching story of sacrifice and grace. Of forgiveness and second chances. Of those who think second chances should not
be given. Today, I am listening to the
soundtrack and can’t seem to shake the story of one of the characters, Fantine. She has
become a prostitute in her desperation to provide for her daughter, Cosette. Her song is entitled, “I Dreamed a
Dream”. She tells of better days, of the dreams she
had, when she was young. She tells of
the man who came into her life and promised her the world, only to leave her
when he was done with her. She carried his baby and now she carries the shame. Shame
for falling in love, for making a mistake. She is tainted. Her life defined by
a single act. The world will make sure she
never forgets what she has done. They
will make her pay; little mercy shown to a whore. But not Jean Valjean. No, He is a man who knows of failure, of
mercy, of forgiveness and of second chances.
He shows kindness to Fantine. He picks
up her fevered, diseased ridden body and cares for her until she slips away in
death.
The irony of this
young woman’s life. She was accused and
thought of as being a whore long before she ever was one. Her only crime was falling in love and giving
herself to a man she thought loved her. It was only later, after she was made
an outcast that she became the very thing she never intended to be….never
wanted to be. What choice did she have?
Her sin had been exposed; little grace is to be shown to an unwed
mother. Any reputation she had was shattered. No one would hire her. And so she succumbed. To survive.
To provide for her daughter.
To the men who came
to see her, she was only a body to be used and discarded. To the world around her, she was only seen as
something vile and wretched. Her
humanity gone. It is so easy to
dehumanize people. To reduce them to
nothing more than a societal problem. An
inconvenience. Something to be disposed
of. I wish I could say that I am not
guilty of doing this to people. I am
not. For a variety of reasons, some of
which I am not even aware of, I can do this to others. Sometimes it is just easier, less emotional,
to write people off. To come up with a
reason why they are what they are or do the things they do. But this is not the person I want to be. Not in the least. I want to be someone who sees past the exterior. I want to see the person. I want to remember that there is a story
behind ugly, behind the unlovely. I want
to be kind and compassionate. I want to
be merciful and forgiving. I want to
give second chances.
I am so thankful for
the people God has put in my life that have loved me when I wasn’t my most
lovely. When my body was fevered and
sick. I am glad they were able to look deeper, past the ugly and to the me
inside. I am thankful for the Jean
Valjeans in my life and I hope I can be that for others.
