Beauty in the Brokenness: Reflections After a Week of Working Alongside Sacred Road Ministries

"If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."

{Isaiah 58:10-11}

Spending a week at the White Swan reservation in Yakima, WA, left more than a few dried splatters of paint on my arms and dirt under my nails. How can a week living and learning and loving under a 105 degree sun, holding a child grimy with dirt in your lap or slathering slate blue paint on walls and caulking cracks in between boards or singing God's praises with tens of youth or watching the interns love and care for and carry and give piggyback rides and pour themselves over the children with the most beautiful smiles that must touch the heart of God Himself not change someone? To see a ministry living and active and completely overflowing with service in the footsteps of Jesus and to see the changed lives of the children and youth and interns and the beautiful church building and the hearts of those serving. . . how could it not leave an impact on my life? 

To wake up to a beautifully arid landscape and to see Mt. Adams framing the dry landscape and finding roadkill a few miles down West Wapato Road and to arrive at church only to pack a sack lunch and head off to a wonderfully challenging day at worksite painting and roofing and building to bless the community only to arrive back in the afternoon for kids club and to hold and carry and play with the young and dirty and forgotten and yet their smiles and their beautiful, bright eyes just stay with me until we head back to rest and fellowship under the light of a golden, full moon.

When I left last week, I was filled with worry over my own life, and the pages in my journal were filled with fear and uncertainty and insecurity. I was focused on my own hardships and struggles and the little things someone said or did. But arriving at Yakima, my view of myself and God were disoriented and torn from their self-centered perspective. I had to ask myself, do I believe that God is sovereign over all this pain? Is He is control over the physical and sexual and emotional abuse of the children and the economic hardships of the families and the alcohol and drug problems and the broken hearts and uncared-for toddlers? Is He in control and active in the hurting community with mothers younger than me and children wandering around with only diapers and lice in their hair and those who are hurting, hurting in ways that I could never imagine?

And when I looked around and saw the changed lives and the love poured out on the very least, I could say yes. Yes, God is working. Yes, God is turning many towards Him through the examples of His children working faithfully to bring Him honor and praise. I saw the lives on the interns and families and those who trust in Christ, and I saw lives of joy and peace and contentment in the Lord and His work. He is in complete control over each situation, and He is so very, very good.

And if He is control of the abuse and the pain and heartache and the things that break my heart, is He not also in control of my own life? Of the little things that make me worried, of ruined to-do lists, a few hurtful words, healing friendships? Is He not holding the whole world in His hands, holding the lives of those in White Swan and holding mine as well?

Your plans are still to prosper

You have not forgotten us

You're with us in the fire and the flood

You're faithful forever

Perfect in love

You are sovereign over us

And tonight of all nights on July 4th, drunken parties and abuse and the brokenness rages on more than ever in White Swan, and as I reflect on this fact that's so, so wrong, I can't help but cry out and weep over the pain, knowing my God weeps as well. I take comfort in the fact that God's name Emmanuel means God with us, and God not only with me, but God with White Swan and each suffering child and hopeless mother and wounded father and God with Sacred Road, blessing that ministry and allowing it to blossom. God is in the pain. He hears the cry of each child, and He holds them close in His arms. But He's not just leaving the hurt as black and deep as it is, but He's working and moving, creating something glorious and hopeful and peaceful and beautiful, an oasis of joy and beauty in the midst of the blackest pain.

This week I had the chance to "come and see," and I saw. I saw brokenness, but I saw beauty. The beauty of Jesus' heart beating and His love poured out to the children and youth and adults, and I saw the beauty of changed hearts and lives of people once living in sin brought to His feet. I saw the beauty of the interns and teams and families faithfully and diligently working in the heat to love those who Jesus loves. Life is full of brokenness, but we do have a God who is sovereign over our worries and fears and a God who turns our brokenness into something beautiful to shine brightly because of the hope we have in Him. 

Although we are weeping 

Lord, help us keep sowing 

The seeds of Your Kingdom 

For the day You will reap them 

Your sheaves we will carry 

Lord, please do not tarry 

All those who sow weeping will go out with songs of joy 

The nations will say, "He has done great things!" 

The nations will sing songs of joy

Seeing God Behind the Headlines

I read about pain and suffering and tragedy, all in the comforts of a typical suburban American home, while scrolling through the Wall Street Journal on my Macbook, feet resting on plushy cushions, chips near at hand. I can walk across the room to a fridge packed with food or open my closet to a myriad of different outfits. 

Suddenly I look at everything, and I cannot believe that I live among the lucky few, while millions are living in pain and suffering and hardship. It seems hypocritical to read about India's caste system, where untouchables earn less than $4 a month cleaning out latrines and shoveling out human excrement, and then later spend $4 on a Starbucks drink. It saddens me to contemplate the raping and killing and brutality carried on by Boko Haram or the Islamic State. Such brutal murder and anger and fear throughout the world, such trauma as people are beheaded and killed for their faith, as families flee from all they know, all they hold dear.

And here I am. Typing on my Macbook, indecisive over today's outfit or lunch, worrying about PSATs and subject tests and getting all my schoolwork done. 

In times like this, when I feel so useless and hypocritical and monstrous in this safety and comfort and wealth, when I ask the whys and I cannot understand the seeming contradiction, I pray. The only comfort I can rely on on this earth comes from above. And in dark times like this, I am led to the Rock that is higher than this storm of havoc and destruction, and I am comforted by God's attributes. In this pain, in these horrific circumstances of death and suffering, He is sovereign and He is good. 

He is sovereign.

And I stare at those three words until they can penetrate into this thick skull of mine, until they form a picture of God wielding the conductor's wand, holding the painter's paintbrush, molding the clay. The earth is His footstool. He is in perfect control. All this pain, all this destruction is part of His plan. Nothing happens outside of His control, not even all this.

In fact, I know how this story ends. It ends in a fantastic display of God's goodness and holiness and justice, where all tongues from all nations will bow down in worship and recognition of who God is. Just like the cliche action novel, before the author concludes his tale, things seem dark and unreasonable. It seems impossible that the hero or heroine will ultimately escape from all this madness and things will be made right. Yet, at the end of the novel, all is well and everyone lives happily ever after. In the same way, we already know this story has a good ending. This evil in the world will pass and fall away, but my God will reign forever on high where there is no pain, death, or sorrow. 

And so I trust Him. I delight in His sovereignty and supremacy and control.

Even though news headlines are hard to reconcile, even though I cannot understand why these awful things are occurring, I know and believe and recognize God's hand above it all. There is a reason for this madness. And because this is all part of His plan, because I can see the magnificent conclusion of this story, I trust Him.

God is just.

My heart cries out for justice when I look at pictures of murdered civilians, when I see the faces of families fleeing their hometowns, or when I see the corruption in the world and how the rich thrive on top of the bones and blood of the oppressed. In these moments, when my passion spurts out in red flames and I cannot hold within me the anger directed at these men with guns and knives, I recognize that God is just, and justice will be delivered to each individual. 

Justice.

That word brings me to terms with my past. For I deserved death. I deserved a living, eternal, forever kind of death. I was no different than these murderers. My heart was just as black as these killers and the people they murdered. I was once one of them, and only by God's grace did Jesus regenerate my broken heart. I have received grace. Yet who am I to hate other sinners when I was once like them? 

I demand justice. Yet, do I truly know what I'm asking for? Because justice would require an extermination of all unbelieving human life, including my agnostic or atheist friends alongside Islamic terrorists. Which leads me to a recognition of the importance of God's patience and timing, as well as His justice. Not only do we serve a just God, but we serve a patient God, who desires that people come to know Him. 

Justice will come. In the meantime, I wait with Him, for the predestined to repent, for His children to believe, and for all to bow one day before His throne.

God is good.

This sin and death and misery is because of us. We fell into depravity. Our hearts became desperately sick. We rebelled against our Creator, and because of our rebellion, pain and death and suffering came into the world. The evil in this world is a result of sin, not a creation of our Heavenly Father.

In fact, He sent His one and only Son, so that those who believe in His Name and surrender their lives to Him may have life. Instead of passively allowing us to remain trapped in this dark world, Christ unlocked the cage. All we have to do is to simply accept the cage is open and jump out. When we acknowledge and worship Jesus as Lord, when we repent and turn from our sins, we can be truly free. Because of God's free gift, because Christ died so we have a way out of this dark world, we can live life here on earth with rich spiritual blessings and the hope of an eternal life with the King.

And so, though headlines and newspapers may shake my emotions, I know and believe and delight in the fact that my God is sovereign and just and good. Even though I don't understand, though I may never understand the height and depth and width of God's ways, I trust Him. He is faithful. The best is yet to come.