Brokenness...

Today the rain is not just falling...it is pounding! The air is cold, the sky is grey and so is the tempest within my heart. For this time of year, winter, is a mirrored reflection of our grief season. We are in the bleakest, darkest, most barren place of our grief as we remember the lasts and the firsts. We remember the last time Gracie smiled, the last time she looked at us with recognition. We remember her dedication service, her birthday and then her heaven due date. We remember the pain she was in, and the pain we were in and the pain we still are in. We remember...the brokenness.

As I was shopping today I saw brokenness all around me. I could 'see' what I think at times, I am too busy to see. I didn't want to see it, I tried to just get in and get out of the store, but I couldn't. It was like the Lord was showing me all the deep pain of those around me. As I smiled at a young man in the wheelchair I choked down the ball of grief stuck in my throat. I wondered what Gracie would have had to endure had she lived longer. As I held the door open for an elderly lady my eyes filled with tears. By the time I got to the van I was in the full-fledged 'danger zone' of weeping. I cried for the young man in a wheelchair who couldn't string two words together, I cried for the elderly lady who looked so lonely, I cried for my friends who are walking through the valley of cancer, I cried for the families who have loved and lost their beloved children, I cried for hurting youth, I cried for unsaved loved ones, I cried for Gracie, I cried for me - I cried and cried. I can only imagine how God's heart grieves for this lost and broken world.

Today my heart is overwhelmed in brokenness. Is yours? On days where all I see is hurt, and all I feel is pain, I must remember that one day Jesus will make all the hurt stop, all the pain cease, and all the bad things untrue. Oh how I long for that day...to see my Gracie Grace healed and whole, to have my heart perfectly healed with no more patched-up holes and cracks. Until then I ask that God will continue to unveil my eyes to the brokenness all around me, to stop myself from the whirlwind of this busy life, to see past my own pain and to help others in need.

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to eternity

Hillsong United - Hosanna