Many of my days have ended in tears, but today my pillow absorbs fresh cries upon my waking. I scan in my mind over the three other bedrooms in my home, rooms once occupied by my four full-of-life children, children, now grown, tucked safely in their own beds, their own homes.
Twenty-eight hundred and eighteen miles away from me, parents are waking, if they were able to sleep, to the raw new reality of that empty bed, that empty room, that empty hall in which footsteps and laughter of their children will never be heard again. An echo of their grief reaches me from the other side of the country.
Most often I can block bad news out, way out, far away, not my reality, protecting my heart, my mind. Not so now. Not so.
Can we create a new app, somebody, please? One that flips the calendar backwards? Can we put an undo button on this mess, this blow-to-our-guts horror?
Some Sundays I don't want to go to church, choosing to watch the sermon online, but today am drawn there. Gosh, I want to be early. I long to sit with other people, all with huge question marks in our eyes, carrying what-the-hecks on our hearts. A. Time. To. Mourn. Together to listen for that voice of hope in this seemingly completely mad world. A time to pray and wail, to weep and wait, to listen, to be comforted.
Some days the questions seem a whole lot bigger than the answers.
Merciful God, meet us here with the reality of your hope amidst the reality of our anguish.
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