You Are Loved

There are no words that can make any sense about what happened yesterday.

I spent most of this past week furiously writing and finishing two papers, ironically for two of my ethics classes and Friday I was finally done. My Treehouse unfortunately suffered for it and with my own children at school, my husband and I went to run errands for the upcoming Christmas season.

We landed on Belmont and Clark, walking and came upon this young man holding this sign. "How long are you going to be out here, dude?", my husband asked him.

"Don't know, man" he smiled.

There are those who believe that the Gospel can only be preached safely inside a building of someone's choosing. This young man woke up and decided to do this, and THAT is what being a witness to the Gospel means. I have no idea if he is Christian or not but what he did was profoundly Christ-like.

Later, my husband would remark that perhaps if that young man who was trapped in so much darkness had seen this sign somewhere, maybe he wouldn't have reacted to life the way he did. No one knows.

The very hard part of our vocations as pastors and pastoral leaders is that we must not only pray for those affected, but also pray for those who have strayed so far away from the Light. So my prayers include all that have lost their lives.

As we returned back to Hyde Park, I heard the roar of planes overhead; leaning out of our car window slightly, I saw three fighter jets...in the missing man formation. 

Those children will be missing from their homes, their bedrooms and from their parents' arms. Yet, they are not missing from our hearts and minds and where there is that empty space, beyond the Veil...they are welcomed, eternally...and so are, will we.

The Good News is that all of us are Loved, no matter where we are in our faith journey or how we call on God or even how we struggle to understand His/Her existence.  

The Creator weeps, and the Creator welcomes us Home.

Lape Bondye, God's Peace.