One thing I love about blogging is the opportunity to let my fingers probe my thoughts. The very act of pounding the keyboard often gets my soul to open. Sometimes I write here as that happens, and sometimes my blog is just a warm-up for something I want to say somewhere else.
I have several “somewhere elses” on my mind today. The story lines and devotional thoughts are banging against each other in my mind, trying to find a common thread, or at least a place of compatibility.
In my weekly devotional, Soul Scents, I’ve been exploring the idea that God is our safe place.
Tomorrow morning I interview Darrell Auginash, a Ojibiwa Indian who shares Christ’s love with his family and neighbors on the Red Lake reservation. The safety of his home was shattered with a 16 year old entered the High School with three guns. Darrell’s nephew, Ryan, was one of the students injured during the March 21st massacre. You can read more of Darrell’s story here in the featured articles section, and in a few weeks my article will be up on Crosswalk.com’s family channel. In preparation for the interview I spent most of this afternoon researching the Red Lake Massacre. The lump in my throat remains.
This morning at church, our pastor reminded us of God’s call to care for the oppressed and poor as written by the prophet Amos. The pastor showed movie clips from Hotel Rwanda and I found it difficult to keep my composure. At the end of the service he asked me to share about the Amani Watoto ministry, which teaches women refugees in Africa to sew so they can support themselves and what family they have left after years of tribal war and genocide. I wept as I researched their stories and fought to keep my voice steady as I spoke.
These painful stories, and others like them, have occupied my thoughts a lot recently.
It is good to have my heart broken.
Today during communion, I asked God to help me to be willing to enter His suffering, not just His joy and His glory. I was very scared, yet I know He will use whatever He allows me to experience. Seeing and experiencing suffering keep my heart tender before Him. My goals and dreams fade into the background of His purposes in these moments of brokenness. My materialistic desires and dissatisfactions seem petty. My personal troubles, though real, are dwarfed by the magnitude of a hurting world of real people, just like me. And someday, their suffering may be fully mine. How will I face it? Am I willing to be God’s instrument in suffering?
A while back I met Bruce of Torchgrab Ministries Inc. He preached one of the Columbine funerals and has since ministered to numerous people in the midst of unfathomable tragedy. I asked him how he did it. He stared at me for a long time, his blue eyes piercing me to the quick. “Only by grace, Paula. Only by grace.”
Now I must write. By grace I must enter into the pain of those I write about, at least to the extent I am able. Only by experiencing a bit of their pain can I find the Hope that must be shared. Only by seeing their fears can I find my Safe Place.
I am afraid.
Of the pain. Of how it will hurt me.
I am afraid I can’t do it justice.
I fear I can’t write its truth.
And I am afraid of the aching places it will create inside of me.
But God is my Safe Place. He will be in the pain, too.
