I try to focus on the positive in life. To embrace laughter. To look for joy and beauty in this world.
But today…
I am anxious. My stomach is in knots. Today I am overwhelmed and sad.
Another school was terrorized in a place where our children should be safe. So many lives were stolen, so many families devastated.
And this is is just one of many horrible things happening throughout the world.
Today the weight of the world feels heavy on my heart.
Today, this poem (Good Bones) echoes in my mind.
“… The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.”
Read the whole poem by Maggie Smith here.
These words immediately resonated with me when I read them for the first time more than a year ago. It was after a violent national tragedy, although now I’ve forgotten which one. How messed up is it that this kind of thing happens so often that they’re all melting together, one filthy, disgusting ball of pain?
The words are eerily beautiful, haunting. They capture so much of the beauty of motherhood and tragedy of the human experience.
The world is broken. And try as we might, we as humans will never fix it. How do I explain that to my children?
And just as I feel there is absolutely no hope, I realize that our hope cannot come from this world.
“These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
And so, I’ll trust God. And I won’t give up. I’ll keep chugging along, trying to make a difference, trying to show the world love in the little ways I can. I will fight like hell to make things better. I’ll keep telling my kids that they can bring beauty to the world.
And I’ll do my very best to believe it.
Faith Illuminated 