don’t wish you more or less without the mess of you

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-Excerpt from "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus

 

You cannot listen to the radio without knowing that humanity is a place of suffering. I once heard that the best songs come from a broken heart, and I must admit, it is those songs that make my stomach hurt (in a good way) that rip to my core and make me hit "repeat". Our very country was founded on those battered souls of the human experience and the hope that comes with a glimpse of liberation. But where is our hope now? Freedom of speech has left us with citizens bearing automatic rifles. Free love has left us with unloved babies. Free will leaves us with broken hearts. Free economy has left us with starving children. And freedom of religion has left us with dead churches. These freedoms are indeed beautiful; are indeed worth the fight. But they are not where our hopes can rest. Obviously manmade autonomy is a system in want.

So what now? In a world where the tragic thrives and the hopeful quickly whither, where do we go? In a world where innocence is found only in the senile, where men and women die in the streets, where children are sold for pleasure and women are killed for beauty; how can we not cry out, scream with rage, and die in hopelessness? Statistics show we are not untouched by the darkness. We are an oppressed people, imprisoned by our own minds. Depression effects adults and children alike and leaves them isolated. Sex becomes a gimmick and love is raped by the manipulative. Our souls rest and fade away in the ebb and flow of our material desires and we lay down at night wondering what it's all about.

"Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in your rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness- only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleaned or bandaged or soothed with oil."
                                                                                                             Isaiah 1:5, 6

We have all of these wounds- not an inch of our beings are left untouched by the pain, by the rebellion, by the anger, jealousy, fear, selfishness, broken heartedness. Have we forgotten that these wounds can be healed?

"He sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve…the bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and garments of praise instead of the spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."
                                                                                                             Isaiah 61:1b-3

I cannot say with honesty that God does not use the things of this world for his healing purposes. In my own life He has used friends, music, books, pets, and medicines to bring me to a place where I can better know Him. But I can say that God never leaves Himself out of the equation. He is our hope and our bottom line. He is there at the highest peak and He is present at rock bottom. His kingdom HAS come! He HAS reconciled us to Himself! And one day we will throw off the burdens of this world for the splendor of his open pastures!

But for now, as we walk as aliens in this place, we can remember that He is our constant. I have not, as the apostles did, seen the blind restored and the dead raised. But I have seen hearts of marble broken and made soft. I have seen marriages that shouldn't make it, thrive. I have seen citizens of closed countries given truth through dreams and visions. I have seen the restoration of a mind ravaged beyond the grave. I have seen in my own soul the refracted effects of being welcomed into the presence of the Lord and I have known firsthand the sympathy of our Savior. He is a God who rebuilds that which has long been in ruins. He longs to restore that which has for generations been devastated. And He will, if we let Him.