He is here

My brother texts me this morning at 5:36,

'You ok? heard about the riots'

My aunt calls me two hours later, as I sit in a coffee shop near where those riots occurred, to ask me the same.

I look out on the street, and all is peaceful.

But in my heart?

All is riotous.  

A million words have been written, some more useful than others.

Even more have been spoken, as we go about our lives in the midst of the sadness that sits in the air, and as we try to make sense together of the hole that has been ripped open in the facade of our 'Happy Valley'.

Our conversations end with empty stares, failed attempts to close our thoughts with something meaningful,

because in the long run?

Words cannot be found.

We are a large campus, in a small town.

Everyone feels this.

And none of us, no matter how hard we try,
knows what to do with it.

I get on a bus and notice that we are all just a little nicer to each other, a little more gentle.

I walk down the street with tears in my eyes.

I ask myself why I feel so affected, when I would never have told you that 'I bleed blue and white', have never claimed to call this place anything other than where I happen to live in this season, and have never met those whose innocence will forever be lost.  I wonder at the depth of my own grief, when it is nowhere near those deeply inside this web of disappointment, destruction, damage and deceit.

In my asking, I find the place of my heart that is weeping
'This is not the way it was supposed to be', and I realize:

I am grieving all that has been stolen here, in so many ways.

In my asking, I look for the heart of God,
to find how to respond in the face of such darkness,
and I find Him in Isaiah 40:

'Comfort, comfort my people,

says your God.'

I read on, and am reminded that God knows what has been stolen from His people, as He tells Isaiah to speak tenderly to them, to remind them that His story is bigger than the latest breaking news.

I am reminded that His story is that He 

tends his hurting flock like a shepherd,
gathers the lambs in his arms, carries them close to His heart,
and that He is--at the end of the day--victorious.

In the words of the song I can't seem to stop singing this week:

He is victory, and He is here.


In this broken, grieving valley.