While reading Mary Rowlandson's narrative of her captivity, I thought it was extremely interesting that she kept focusing on the future and how God was going to deliver her from her predicament. She didn't allow herself to get beaten down by her situation, even though it was a very diffucult situation to be in. She watched her family all die or be taken prisoner, and saw much brutality on the part of her captors. Yet she was still able to look to God and try to discover his reasons for putting her in this position; I think it was because of this focus on God that she was able to view her captors as just "indians" by the end of her captivity instead of referring to them as "savages" as she had at first.
I also found it very intriguing that she wrote this after she was back with her husband and had been released from the Indians. It made me wonder if she was exaggerating any of her thoughts or feelings throughout her time with them because it was written so much after-the-fact. It is a very hard thing to focus on God in difficult situations, and to have the kind of focus on Him that she claims to have had throughout made me slightly skeptical. I'm sure that she always hoped for Him to save her from where she was but I don't think it's possible to not have serious doubts about what He is doing in a situation such as hers.
All together, I did enjoy reading this piece and found it very thought-provoking.
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URGGGG! I just tried posting my comment to you and the stupid clean access exited me out of the internet so now i can't remember what i wrote but it was good...dang it computers.
ReplyDeletesure it posted that no problem...
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ReplyDeleteAubri, I'm glad you took notice of when this piece was written in correlation with what was penned by Rowlandson. I agree with you that the timing could be important with the feelings that she wrote with about it later. Though we can never know for sure the veracity of her writings, she was either a true woman of faith in God, or at least she wanted to appear so in her memories of it. It is always definitely harder to praise God during life's struggles, and easier instead to sulk in self-pity. She must have had lots of patience(as evident in her carrying of the 6 year old for days?) Rowlandson was for sure an interesting lady who lived a very adventurous life. I'm a little bit jealous, but then I think of the Indian attacks and then not so much anymore...