Hope Amidst The Mess

On May 21st, 1998, I was teaching at East Linn Christian Academy when I received word that a student at Thurston high school had brought weapons to school and opened fire.  We stopped class and awaited the developing news coming out of Eugene, just 50 miles away.  I can remember the looks on the faces of the students in my Bible class.  I remember their questions and I can recall my response, "Lets Pray"...

On September 11, 2001, I was preparing to head out the door to the juvenile correctional facility where I worked when my wife told me that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.  I saw the first footage air on the news, shocked and stunned like millions of Americans across the nation whose lives had just been altered forever.  I listened to the news as I drove to work and, upon entering the violent offender unit, gathered the youth together in the main room, located a television and sat with these young men who stared horrified as the towers fell.  We canceled the morning classes and I sat in that locked facility and struggled to answer questions from scared young men, whose tough exteriors crumbled beneath the weight of true fear.  When there was a break in the newscast, I walked out into the interior courtyard encircled by drab gray concrete walls, and I prayed...

Over the last 11 years, my children have grown, I have left one career, entered into another, left that career and returned to full-time youth ministry.  I have coached and watched hundreds of athletic events.  I have celebrated births and spoke lovingly at the funerals of saints.  I have gained and lost the same 15 lbs more than once and been dismayed as I have begun to see the face of my father look back at me from the mirror.  I have been upset over my child's playing time and outraged over poor officiating.  I have tried to raise my income and spent hours worried about bills. I have went about my busyness of living and the memories of those tragic days spent confused and questioning God, the scared faces of kids looking for answers, have slowly slipped into my distant memory....Until last week.

Suddenly, none of my life's selfish pursuits seemed so important. As word of the terror that evil had visited upon a community much like ours hit the news, the time my child had on the field was not nearly as vital as the time spent in my arms. The money I did or didn't have not so important as the time I still had, time to tell them I loved them, time to create memories.  The wrinkles on my face did not consume me as much as my desire for my children to live a long and happy life, time for them to develop wrinkles of their own... To see the face of their father looking back at them from their mirror....Because what I felt was not that it could happen here, but rather that it might happen here....

You see, the truth is scary.  We live in a broken world.  It is not as it should be, and we cannot control it. Evil is present and real, despite our desire that it not be so.  And so we shift the discussion immediately to things we can control; Gun laws, the merits of behavioral medication...Anything which can take our minds away from what haunts the recesses of our psyche and gnaws at our hearts...It might happen here, and we cannot control it.  Surely, we can take precautions.  We can use wisdom.  But how do you combat the presence of evil? The twisted darkness that desires to kill?  Despite my best efforts to create a life that is ordered and sane, this past week reminded me once again that we live in a broken world...One that cries out to be restored.  But is that not why Jesus was born in that barn, amidst the mess?  Because it is messy, this world we live in, and He came not to stay clean, pristine and unreachable. No, He came to give hope to those in the dirt, their tears darkening the ground beneath them.  He chose to be born far away from the trappings of wealth so that those who feel far away can draw near to Him.  I don't understand the thoughts of God, but I know He understands my suffering, because He endured it...All to give me hope in midst of a broken world..

Last week, my wife texted me that a schoolroom of small children had been killed.  I avoided the news, changing the channel whenever the footage of a mourning community began to roll.  I tried to push the thoughts far from my mind as I looked at my own children.  But I found myself weeping, the reality pushing in despite my efforts to keep just such thoughts at arms length...The world is broken...My heart is broken..And so I do the only thing I know to do...I pray..........

This past week, I found myself, yet again, standing frozen in the middle of a pizza parlor watching the images of a shooting at a school, this time at a college not far from my comfortable little town. I thought of my college age son, my soon to be college bound daughter, and my joy filled youngest son, so unaware of what evil exists within the world.  And, again, with my eyes misting over....I prayed. I prayed for the residents of Roseburg, for the families touched by the tragedy, for those faithful flocking to the school to offer help and encouragement.  And I prayed for God to remind me to lean into Him, to comfort the fear I felt rising within me....To remind me that while evil exists and tomorrow is uncertain, He has overcome this world.  And so,  I choose today, yet again , to hold to His promises, to not give in to fear, but rather to release myself to continue to love others as He has called me to do.  To live my life in such a way that answers the question to all those around me, the question asked by the shooter last week to those in that classroom, " Are you a christian?".