Sorrow and Hope...

I spent some time today at what I can only describe as the Christian equivalent of sitting Shivah. I have never been in a house so full of sorrow, so overcome with silence. As I came in to the house, I knew I could do nothing but weep with the broken hearted. I had to let go of my hope to somehow be able to help, and just realize that sometimes in life there is nothing you can do. And sometimes in life nothing makes sense. It is just a time to mourn. To truly weep. As each person came in, the reaction was the same--an outpouring of sadness--a sadness deeper than any I had ever seen. And I had to tell myself that there was no way to stop it or help. It just had to be. It was the time to mourn. And somehow, strangely, mourning together felt like the right thing to do. It was right to be in a place where people could cry and simply be broken. I am not foolish enough to think that my grief in any way compared to that of the family, so I could not imagine what they were experiencing. The dear, sweet, amazing boy they lost will be missed every day by so many. He was precious, and so full of potential. He was so young, and his life was just getting started. He was loved and cherished, and nothing will fill the hole left by him. As I sat there processing what was happening, I kept thinking what I thought when my grandmother passed away. Death makes no sense to my soul. Something in me knows that this was not the way it was supposed to be. Something in the deepest part of who I am knows that mortality wasn't in the cards originally. So my mind and heart and soul can never quite understand how someone can be gone. My soul rebels against the thought that a life on earth is over--even when thinking about heaven and eternal life. My heart aches for those who lost their son, brother, cousin, and friend, while at the same time my heart refuses to believe that this is normal--refuses to believe that this was the way it was supposed to go. And so I am reminded of the tension we live in. Of waiting for God to rectify things while finding a way to live fully until He does.

When I heard the news, it was one of those moments that changes things. And any way I describe it will sound like a cliche. But the words that came out of my mother's mouth didn't seem real. I couldn't comprehend how a boy I had babysat for, that I had known since he was tiny, had died last night. He is also the son of my dad's best friend. My heart broke. It broke for the life lost--the potential, the story that won't be told. It broke because I always looked forward to seeing him around church, to hearing how he was growing up. It broke for my dad--how his heart was broken for his friend, and for the boy he loved. But more than that, my heart broke for his family. I don't know what you do with that. How do you...I can't even think of a verb for it. It was one of those moments where your head tries to protect you by coming up with any way that makes things okay. And you keep thinking that surely, somehow, it will turn out to be a mistake. It just actually seems like there is no way that he can possibly be gone. I found myself crying in a way I hadn't in a very long time. It was the tears that come from the inability of a soul meant for eternity to grasp mortality. I just kept thinking, "But there was so much left for him."

I witnessed a shooting the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. I was in the US Capitol building when a crazy man acted on his thoughts that the government was out to get him. My life forever changed that day, and I remember the moment I stepped out of the Capitol. The sun was shining, and the people outside didn't yet know what was going on. I must have looked distraught, so a lady asked me what was wrong. I looked at her and thought, "How can you not know?" It didn't seem possible, that with something so atrocious happening, the sun could still shine and everyone else was still moving. I felt the same way today, leaving this family's house. After watching so many with broken hearts, grieving from the deepest part of who they are, it seemed impossible that the people at the car wash could still be so casually washing their cars, and the people at the pizza place could hand us our pizza with such an everyday attitude. It feels like the whole world should stop, should cease to operate as normal. And then there is the sad realization that, until Jesus returns and rights all of the wrongs, that this is normal. A day in which our hearts break, and sorrow is common, is normal in a fallen world--a world with sin and suffering and incomplete people. A world where God's grace allows us to live without his full justice means a world where we have a chance to know Him and His grace, but it also means that we must encounter the tragic side of free will. And so I realize that every day full of beauty and love and hope is a gift that I must hold on to, and every day filled with devastation and grief and unbearable loss is a day that makes my heart ache that much more for the day that He declares enough. For the day when He rights the wrongs and heals us completely. The day that leads to an end to death, and illness, and disabilities. A day when none of us are broken in any way...the day when we become who God originally designed us to be--whole, one with him, and free from sorrow.