Several weeks ago, a bookmark with an etching of a tiny,
delicate snowflake and those words written on it fell out of my book and onto
my lap, and I thought, “Yes, THAT is peace.” It’s an image that has stuck in
the back of my mind, one that appears again when my household gets noisy and
crazy.
Some days are just like that. My one-year-old and
three-year-old chase each other in and out of rooms, laughing and shrieking,
and I say “settle down” about 87 times before I remember those words about
peace and think, oh wow,peace…I
desperately need peace.
Other days I hear about children getting murdered. And I get
a dose of perspective.
I listen to a mother tearfully describe her precious daughter
who loved ponies and was going to get cowgirl boots for Christmas. I watch the
screen cut back to the news anchor whose voice breaks as she struggles to get
her words out, and I shuffle to the television to turn it off because I’m
barely able to see it anyway…barely able to hear anything over my sobs.
No one needs peace right now more than the families of those
sweet babies. They need peace to fill their world, grace to fall around them
like flurries of snow. To be given the comfort they can no longer give their
children. To be given hope they’ll one day live again.
After my friend Charles died, I spent about a year with a
strange ache inside of me, as though at every moment I was acutely aware of his
lack of presence on this earth. Grief can physically feel like an anchor
weighing you down, pulling you under, refusing to let you surface no matter how
hard you struggle. I think that’s why hope is described as an anchor in the
Bible – because you have to replace the grief with the secure anchor of hope.
I know everyone wants to understand why this stuff happens.
Why must we face evil? Why must we feel fear and pain? Why can’t we fix it? Why
can’t we just make that evil disappear?
But the reality is it’s
there. The reality is not one of us
is guaranteed tomorrow.
I have tried before, unsuccessfully, to prepare myself for a
possible future reality in which I no longer have my children. Gut-wrenching
doesn’t even begin to describe the grief and pain that I see in such a world. Yet
it’s a reality that parents face.
It’s a reality we all face – the sorrow and brokenness of a world that was never meant to be permanent. And to be honest, I often choose to
bury my head in the sand and pretend that reality does not exist. The pain is
too great, the stakes too high. But my ignoring it doesn’t make it go away. My
ignoring it doesn’t change the nature of its truth.
This world is not meant to be faced alone, and thankfully,
it’s not meant to be faced forever. There’s a better one waiting for us.
There’s light beyond the darkness, and no more tears beyond the pain of this
earth.
I stalk a forum that my husband is on, and in reading
through some of the posts after this tragedy, no words affected me quite like
his:
“Evil has no self-restraint, but God has love and mercy
immeasurable, and believe me, those children aren't lost but are safe and sound
in the bosom of their Savior.”
His words broke me. It’s a truth that I know. It’s a truth
that I often refer to in passing or smile and nod at when another person speaks
of it. But this eternal truth needs far more attention – because it is the only
one that provides an ounce of hope, the only one that knows of sorrow. Here we
are, in the midst of the raging battlefield as the silent snow falls all around
us. The light in the darkness.
Time does not heal, but hope does fill in those trenches
that the grief dug. That’s all I know to do – cling to that hope as I continue
down this path of brokenness and heartache.
