Its just a rock you goose!!

Yesterday I watched Blood Diamond starring Leo Di and Jennifer Connelly. I must say Leo Di is a good actor. I was rather impressed.

The movie made me think about the diamond trade. For those who haven't watched it, its basically about how rebels in Sierra Leone violently exploit poor villagers to mine diamonds, only to smuggle them to Liberia in exchange for huge sums of money to fund their rebel cause. The movie portrayed the violent fighting between government forces and rebel groups and highlighted the atrocities carried out by the rebel groups - recruiting child soliders, raping women and girls, chopping off hands...

At one point in the movie Leo Di remarks "sometimes I wonder if God will ever forgive us for what we have done to each other. Then I look around [the continent Africa] and realise God left this place long ago".

Africa is a continent plagued with problems. Genocide in Rwanda, civil war in Darfur, major unrest in Somalia, where they haven't had a government for the past 16 years, child soldiers, female genital mutilation, famine, drought, the list goes on... Its not hard to question the existence of God when you look at the horror that goes on in Africa.

It seems like a lame response to argue that God DOES exist and God DOES care even though it doesn't seem like it and he IS in control even when things go wrong. God is God and he know's what he's doing. He is sovereign over everything that happens in the world, and I know this to be true because of what he tells us in his Word. It's a circular argument isn't it. How do we know God is true? Because he says so. How do we know that what he says is true? Because he is God.

I don't know how else to put it and I don't know how to convince anyone else to believe what I know to be true. God's sovereignty is one of the hardest concepts for me to explain and understand.

That aside, the one major thing that the movie made me determined to do is to not ever buy diamonds again. Never ever!

I'm saying this for all to read. I don't ever want to buy diamonds. My parents have bought me a diamond ring, I've bought myself a (VERY small) diamond, and an ex boyfriend has bought me diamonds. All that's done and that chapter of my life is closed. No more diamonds for me. Even if they're from conflict free zones.

I don't want to own something so "precious" if its caused so much suffering for others around the world. I don't want to be a consumer to add to the demand of such a "precious" commodity. I don't need it.

We're all going to die. "Diamonded" or "diamondless".

God promises us treasures in heaven that will never be destroyed if we serve him all our days. That's more precious to me than any diamond I could own. (Matt 6:19,20)

I wonder how many people I can convince to not buy diamonds.