Source: National Geographic – A Life Revealed

What a fascinating story…I remember seeing this as a youth. My Dad subscribed me to National Geographic magazine and every month for years, they’d come in the mail…in spite of the fact they were incredibly boring to me as a youth. But the photographs were worth the cost of the magazine. The one above–on the left–of the Afghanistan girl was one of them. When I think of Afghanistan, I think of that picture.

In reading the article, I love the way this paragraph reads:

Names have power, so let us speak of hers. Her name is Sharbat Gula, and she is Pashtun, that most warlike of Afghan tribes. It is said of the Pashtun that they are only at peace when they are at war, and her eyes—then and now—burn with ferocity. She is 28, perhaps 29, or even 30. No one, not even she, knows for sure. Stories shift like sand in a place where no records exist.

It reminds me of the Conan stories…who burns with ferocity anymore? And this part is a reminder for us all…

Such knife-thin odds. That she would be alive. That she could be found. That she could endure such loss. Surely, in the face of such bitterness the spirit could atrophy. How, she was asked, had she survived?

The answer came wrapped in unshakable certitude.

“It was,” said Sharbat Gula, “the will of God.”

Read the whole thing online.

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