Amyra أميرة • Notes ‎سجلّ

🤔 Witnessing Gaza - Journal 13 Hope Despite Dark Horizons Sometimes - the weight of watching Gaza closely settles so heavily on me - that I understand why people choose to look away. Every notification is another death or serious need being unmet. Another impossible decision between food, medicine, clean water, or shelter. Every day, the temptation to believe that "nothing we do matters" whispers a little louder. Then I speak with the survivors in Gaza. Three summers of relentless heat in tents that trap the sun. Three winters where rain found every hole in the fabric. Three years of hunger that never quite leaves. Three years of displacement after displacement after displacement. Three years with a constant sound of drones overhead. Three years of bombs, grief, & uncertainty of whether tomorrow will even come. Yet somehow, they still speak about tomorrow. They still tell me about the homes they will rebuild, schools they want their children to attend, & meals they will cook. They plan gardens they will plant, and weddings they will celebrate when they are free. They still laugh, commiserate, comfort one another, and they always thank God for another sunrise. If anyone has earned the right to surrender to despair, it would be them. But they don’t let their occupiers win - they keep their faith and their hope for a better tomorrow. What's further, I have been stunned to hear them say that our hope gives them hope. They tell me that knowing people across the world still care reminds them that they have not been abandoned. When I am exhausted, when I wonder whether my efforts can possibly matter, I remember them. Their courage shames my cynicism. Their patience steadies my fear. Their hope becomes my hope. Hope is an act of strength, an affirmation to refuse to let the pain overcome us. So if you’re reading this from somewhere safe, guard your hope carefully. It is something the people of Gaza have asked us not to lose. They need our voices, our persistence, our compassion, and our belief that another future is still possible. One day, God willing, I hope the people I’ve come to know there will wake up to ordinary mornings. I hope their biggest worries will be work, school, family gatherings, and the everyday dreams that every human being deserves to have. I hope the sound that wakes their children is birds instead of drones. I hope they will only have to dream about beautiful things because living safely will no longer be a dream at all. Until that day comes, I pray and hope that we will maintain our path of moral justice and human dignity - even when it feels hopeless.

This journal begins here.

🙏🙏🙏☝ AmyraCull أميرة 🔗 Libr8.me