Monday, August 28, 2017

“Sometimes it is good to be sad.”

I was talking to my girls about the flooding in Texas this morning. During our conversation, Audrey said to me, “Stop talking about this, it is making me sad.”

Her words struck me and I told her, “Sometimes it is good to be sad.”

I get where she’s coming from--What a completely human thing to say. It is a painful thing to look upon the suffering in the world around us; it is uncomfortable and confronting. It can accost the quiet peace of our day and force our mind to travel roads we’d rather not venture down. I used to cling firmly to a personal policy similar to her 4-year-old request, “If I don’t see it, I can’t feel for it.” And I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to let other’s pain into my little world.

And then I met Jesus.

I met Jesus, and everything changed. 

Everything changed because Jesus, He looks upon the suffering and He weeps with the broken-hearted; He stands before both the oppressed and the oppressor and invites them to eat at His table; He kneels down beside the sickbeds of those no one would dare to touch; He puts Himself in the dark places so that the ones who reside there could know light.

Everything changed because if I wanted to grow in likeness to my Christ, I had to entrust Him with my heart. I have to let myself feel what He feels, see what He sees, hear what He hears so that I can learn to bring His unwavering love to a world that desperately needs to feel the gentleness of His compassion, to be transformed by His burning affection and to bow beneath the astounding wonder of His delight.

And so, I look at my intensely emotional little girl and I pray that someday she would find the courage to open her eyes.