Mandella--the Man

Mandella's passing left nobody surprised after he had beaten death once before.  His place in history is secured the leader who beat apartheid. His example as a man is one to hold up--the man who spent 27 years in prison, allowed one visitor and one letter annually, who emerged transformed from the hate and bigotry.  It is said that what does not break you will make you.  I do not believe that happens automatically. Something there was in the character and soul of the man that siphoned the worst and prepared him as a person he never could not have been if it weren't for the experience.  Nobody asks for that life experience.  Once given, it can take you where you could not go without it.  At the heart of the passion of Jesus Christ, his death on the cross, is the love of the Father which made him the Son.  We too never know what we are made of until the worst comes and the opportunity presents itself for us to be born anew....