when life gives you ashes...

There is something in the framework of our humanity that is uncomfortable with the broken. It can be somewhat unpleasant at times...
Messy.
And there is something within us that sees the mess and wants to fix it.
The humanity within us switches to auto pilot disaster relief.
Instead of waiting for the dust to settle,
we are already on the ground with supplies
and good-intentioned plans to cure -
Disease ravaged countries.
Natural disaster zones.
Other people's problems.

Don't get me wrong - there are immediate needs that will always need to be met.
But sometimes in our rush to silence whatever is unsettling our thoughts, we overstep the immediate need and start applying our band aid ideas to whatever we can get our hands on. And sometimes the very things that we think will help the situation the most, end up being the very things that will hinder the process of healing.

It was 4 years ago around this time that I trekked down to Mississippi with a hundred high school students. I remember, like it was yesterday, driving past the remnants of what Hurricane Katrina left behind.
Those pictures are forever burned into my memory banks.


It was sobering to set foot on front yards children used to play in,
silenced by a torrent long past.
To look at streets once lined with houses,
now long stretches of twisted debris - stripped bare of life.


To walk on the leveled foundations of what were once homes -
places representing years of life.
laughter.
memories.

gone.

in a moment.

It was a community ripped open at the seams,
devastated.
grieving.
And we were strangers
treading upon their exposed hearts.


It was brokenness I was privileged to see only a fragment of...
and yet that brief walk gave me a humbled perspective.
One of the things we were told while working there was that physically repairing something wasn't the main avenue of helping the broken.
It was to listen.
To let the people share their stories of the storm,
and their journey beyond it.
To walk beside them through their morning after...
However long.
However awkward.

Because you see, to walk is part of the process.
It is sometimes the brokenness that we have to painfully walk through
that will bring complete healing in the end.
If we had just gone and repaired their homes on the outside
we would have missed the bleeding heart on the inside.

Not every cut can be treated with a band aid.

Sometime in your lifetime you may be called to places of brokenness.
In a moment.
Some situations will be messy -
Broken families...
Broken communities...
Broken people...

And there aren't always easy answers.
Instant solutions.
Comfortable conversations.

Sometimes the immediate need is not to fix the problem.
It is to walk -
at times in silence -
thru a brokenness beyond our understanding or rationale.
It is to watch the weak attempt to get back on their feet
and stand beside them
in the morning after their storm
It is to weep with those who weep.

Because sometimes we need to be broken for a while.

It will be a journey of pain...
little steps amidst the rubble.
It will be a journey of time...
some days only moment by moment.
But it will be a journey of healing...

God...give me the strength to walk in Your way
...and the wisdom not to get in the way.