Hearts all over the country are hurting. Specifically hearts out east, as the rest of the country sympathizes.
It’s unthinkable. There is no easy answer.

The same day those babies and teachers were killed, my boys were first on the scene of a fatal accident in which another baby girl met Jesus along with her mom. Leaving behind an injured twin sister, an older sister and a broken-hearted daddy.

No words, no laws, no president, no unified country can change this world we live in. It’s been fallen and broken for much longer than we can imagine. Humans broke God’s heart almost at the start, and it continues.

We, at least, can opt out of viewing other folks’ pain. His heart surely continues to break as He holds each parent’s hand all the way through–if they let Him.

What kind of God would allow this? Surely, that’s what folks will ask.
This is not His doing. There is evil at play. This world is full of darkness and suffering.
There is only One Light.

As a little girl, I sang a song that said, “He never said there’d only be sunshine. He never said there’d be no rain. He only promised a heart full of singing, at the very thing that once brought pain.”

As long as we live here, there’s going to be pain. To expect less sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Do we expect that if there really is a God we’d live in utopia? Who deserves the kind of pain we see around us or maybe feel? In our human minds, no one does.

But if we didn’t hurt or cry out in pain, we’d never know the need for the Giver of Peace! If we didn’t know the absence of joy, we never give credit to the Joy-Giver!

Into the darkness, a Savior was born. It was in the dark of night, when He was most needed.
Hope is here. In the darkest night, Hope was born.

You can argue theology with me all day and I might lose, but what you can never take from me is that in my darkest midnight, I was never alone. No one can ever take from me the memory I have of peace that washed over me like a warm, sweet blanket in a moment of sheer panic.  No one can ever convince me that the times when the presence of God was more real to me than any human has ever been did not happen.
And there is NOTHING in this world that means more to me than that. I cannot imagine a day without the peace I have. I could not exist without the hope I found. In the midst of pain, I can see beyond this moment to a plan bigger than mine.

I will sing of it forever.

Dear Jesus,

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