The Broken Songs We Sing

This week has been a helluva. It just seems to get worse for people around me, and it just... feels like the darkness is getting a little too close. The last two weeks have been so full. Good and bad, mixed together, but f course the bad comes out stronger, uglier and seemingly triumphant. I'm really tired of bad news.
It's not just that two things got stolen from me. Because I know they weren't that big of a deal. It's just more and more bad news. People are dying a lot in the local news. I had to report my stolen kindle to the police today which made me so sad. But it's not even a big deal because there are some people I know whose lives aren't ever going to be the same this week.
And sometimes there just isn't much to say while we stand around in the aftermath, the ripples of the troubles floating out around us. Sometimes ther'es not much to do when brokenness encroaches when we realize again how hard this life is, when reality hits too close to home.
We stand there, hands in pockets, staring into space, thinking maybe there are answers out there, maybe if we think harder or prayer harder or just cry a little more, some how it will patch itself back together and then, maybe, maybe things won't seem quite so black. Maybe it's just a little blip on the radar in the scheme of it all. But that doesn't make it any less dark.
And maybe we'll never be the same.
What's there to do for that friend whose life just isn't going right? For my relative who's marrying her girlfriend and whose family emits the hatred vibe toward her? Whose husband lost his job? For the little girl who grew up among us at church and is now going to bury her husband of five weeks? For that family of fifteen kids whose mom won't ever kiss them goodnight again?
Anger and rage surround the questions that burn in my chest, and they mostly just come out in tears or in painful questions I can't answer. Sometimes I wonder why I believe in anything. Sometimes I question if what I do believe is really just some well-crafted lie that people made up to make themselves feel better. And just when I get to that point, I step back and remember.
Love gets the final word.
It isn't really a consolation when you're in the middle of the pain. It doesn't really change how crappy it all is. But it opens up a door that lets a little light in. Jesus gets the final say. And he's going to wipe tears from our eyes and tell us it's all all right.
He's going to build a new kingdom of perfection where sorrow dies, where lies are not believed, where love and light dwell eternally.
And even while we wait, He's good. His promises are true, no matter how we feel. I wouldn't have been able to say that seven years ago. Maybe not even five years ago. But the song that grief sings is temporary. And when joy seeps back in, you look over your shoulder and find those dark days were covered in something inexplicable, something mysterious and untouchable, and yet so reachable, so personal. Something that heard all of those lonely cries in the night, something that worked behind the scenes, moving people to do the right things, patching the broken pieces of your heart into something new and beautiful. Something that spoke to you at the point when you were ready to give up and let go. Love. And there, in that place where grief drops off and love takes over, we find fortitude and Strength, we find Hope, and we find Peace.