A New Day Will Come

I woke up weeping last night after a nightmare in which a dearly beloved pet died. I've never had a pet die, but I automatically knew the section of my complicatedly crafted psyche from which the dream materialized. Grief.


Father's Day looms for me every year...with marketing and advertising hailing fathers(accurately) as a vital part of the family unit and a provider of security, love, identity, leadership, and wisdom, I can't help but be reminded of what my family lacked in our formative years and of the grief that still has its roots in our family today.

And another life...crafted tenderly and delightedly by God, ended yesterday. James, a kiddo from Youth Impact, a ministry to youth in the poverty culture that I was surpassingly blessed to be a part of in college, died yesterday. I'm still rather in shock. A face that smiled freely, a laugh that echoed loudly, a spirit the flourished joyfully, we are deprived of for the rest of our time on earth.

Last night as I sat in shock and sadness, God spoke a beautiful truth to me. If my father hadn't passed away, I wouldn't have moved to Texas and joined a wonderful youth group with wonderful people who taught me what a relationship with God looked like. I wouldn't have gone to Texas A&M(lots of other pieces to this puzzle, but I'll go with the most direct route), I wouldn't have had the passion for a culture that often lacks positive father figures and joined Youth Impact and met James. So even in the grief, I believe God's plan really does reign supreme and sovereign, and that His desire is for our lives here to be greater because we know Him. 

And my soul cries out that it's not right. Something deep inside of me that was created for eternity, for unbroken and unwavering joy and peace in the presence of God yearns with an arched back and clenched teeth desperately for something more than broken hearts, school shootings, terrorism, violence, and hatred. We were not made for unhappy endings, and every end of a life is vastly unhappy.

So who makes it right? Who restores what is broken? Who tells me to rejoice always? Someone who hurts infinitely more at the disparity of what the world is and what it should have been. But also someone who knows infinitely more the next chapter of the story in which He will knit the raggedly torn universe back together again. With that knowledge, with the belief that the beauty that IS in the current world....mountains, oceans, held hands, marriage, sunshine on my skin, breeze playing with the branches of the trees....is barely a shadow of the glory that God has to recreate...that for those that trust in Christ, "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away,"(Revelation 21:4), with that knowledge comes great hope. 

Hebrews 11 speaks of a greater inheritance-of men that did not see God's promises come to pass on Earth, but they remained faithful followers because of the hope for a greater future Then in Hebrews 12, Paul brings his point to fruition in this: "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us,  fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."

As difficult as this life is sometimes to trudge through, I have to salute the crazy creativity of God. Stories that are full of happy rainbows and unicorns the whole time might be nice, but might leave us hankering for a plot. I think the reason we relate to stories that weave a tangled web with conflict and action but then are wrapped up in happy conclusion with conflict resolved and anguish comforted is because that's our story. 

I'll leave this Lord of the Rings quote to wrap up in true nerd fashion. My boy Tolkein knew what was what.

Sam:It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered.Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?
Sam: That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.