ABC News and the Mueller family released a letter from Kayla Mueller written while Daesh held her:

According to the letter, she relied on memories of family camping trips and her faith to help her during her captivity, writing that “by God + by your prayers I have felt tenderly cradled in freefall.”

“None of us could have known it would be this long but know I am also fighting from my side in the ways I am able + I have a lot of fight left inside of me. I am not breaking down + I will not give in no matter how long it takes,” she wrote.

She repeated that her family should not be responsible for negotiating for her release, saying it “should never have become your burden.”

“None of us could have known it would be this long but know I am also fighting from my side in the ways I am able + I have a lot of fight left inside of me. I am not breaking down + I will not give in no matter how long it takes,” she wrote.

This is an amazing letter. Daesh is not known for being kind to their captives and they are in all ways a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Imagining what her life was like in the hands of these animals is unthinkable and unimaginable. However, Kayla’s spirit remained unbroken. We do not know when Daesh murdered her but it is doubtful at best that she died the way these barbarians claim

We like to play armchair quarterback when watching someone else’s life play out on TV. We like to say what the other person did wrong and role-play what we think we would do if we were that person. However, this post is not about roles, second-guessing or victim shaming. It is about something called basic civility. Kayla Mueller was an idealist from an early age and lived her ideals. Ha’aretz acknowledges this quality and described Ms. Mueller as follows:

An idealistic, bright eyed girl from the small town of Prescott, who was voted “best smile” in her graduating year and was a member of her high school’s robotics club, Mueller was someone who seems to have always been drawn to helping the weak; always indignant about the unjust.

She organized marches to raise awareness of the situation in Darfur, volunteered with America’s Promise and Big Brothers Big Sisters, was college president of a student-led movement to end mass atrocities, and won the Yavapai County Community Foundation award for Youth Philanthropist of the Year in 2005. The quote on her high school yearbook page comes from William Blake: “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.”

Mueller had been in Syria exactly one day and one night when she was kidnapped, on August 4, 2013. But she was not new to the Middle East or areas of conflict. After graduating from Northern Arizona University in 2009 – after just two and a half years – she set out into the world, traveling and volunteering in northern India and then in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

She did spend two months of said trip with a group called ISM in the Palestinian territories but that is what an idealistic youngster would do: help those they see as oppressed. She did not deserve to be kidnapped and mistreated then murdered. Blaming Kayla for the consequences of being in the worst possible place at the wrong time is in my opinion despicable. Sort of like second guessing crime victims actions after being robbed or raped. That is all I will say about the bilious and nasty posts on the internet doing exactly that. Kayla tried to do the right thing. So let’s remember her life and not blame her for being murdered. Can we do that and be the compassionate conservatives we like to say we are? Please? Ha’aretz quotes from her letter:

“I have been shown in darkness, light + have learned that even in prison, one can be free. I am grateful,” Mueller writes to her family. “I have come to see that there is good in every situation, sometimes we just have to look for it.”

The above quote does transcend all divisions and cuts to the chase. I spend a lot of time looking for the bad and negative and I like this quote as a priority check aka a heart check. My prayers for the peace of Christ on the Muellers and their family and Kayla’s friends. Rest in peace Kayla and thank you for being an example of grace in the worst of circumstances.