The Hillsong United song “Hosanna” has this lyric in it:
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
I’ve sung that the line "break my heart for what breaks yours" passionately over the years. I’ve belted it with tears falling from my face, shouted it along side high school students in South Africa, whispered it in front of the cross at church.
I truly mean it. I truly desire that God would break my heart for what breaks His.
The thing is this: I don’t think I’ve ever felt it before. I’ve held on tight to toddlers in townships in South Africa, cuddled orphans in China, cried with friends who’s lives seemed to be falling apart.
I got the pain. I got the hurt. I understood the need.
I don’t think my heart ever broke though.
I know what my heart feels like when it is broken. My heart has broken over my own personal scenarios. Stuff that has directly affected me. But never over something that has in no way, shape, or form actually been in my spear of influence.
And then I woke up last Friday morning and curled up in my bed went on to read what was going on in the world via my twitter feed.
I didn’t believe it at first.
I couldn’t fathom someone going in and shooting at kids.
At 6 year olds.
I got up and sat in front of the TV and watched.
And the tears started to flow down my face.
If you know me; you know that kids are my life. Especially the little ones. The life, the hope, the joy they have is catching. Working at a preschool for 5 years of my life, at a day camp for 3 summers, at churches as a sunday school teacher, were some of the best decisions I have ever made.
Kids are so good, (even when they aren’t.)
And the thought that someone would take THAT much good from this world?
And now days later; I still feel it. I feel the pain, the heartache. The realization of Christmas presents under trees that will never get opened. Of bikes that will never have a chance for training wheels to get taken off, of little lives that will never get a chance to explore their backyard again.
And I know that there is all of this talk about gun-control, about mental health, about all of these political issues that are coming out of this.
But all I can think about are those presents, those training wheels, those backyards.
All I can think about are the parents who won’t be able to ever yell at their kids for tracking mud in the house, who will never get a chance to make them eat their veggies, or to watch them struggle to stay up late
And there it was.
My heart was broken, is broken for something, for an event that completely and utterly has broken God’s heart.
And here I am wondering what I am going to do with that.
I can pray for those families who will stare at toys and bikes.
For the coworkers who will look into empty classrooms.
For the sweet little kids who won’t quiet understand why their friends aren’t coming back to school.
I can donate money. I can send words of hope and light to families.
And in 3 weeks I can get on a plane and begin a journey of loving kids all over the world, of loving people, families.
Of continually allowing God to show me the hurting, and being ok with being hurt by it, being ok with crying tears for His kids.
All I know is that my heart is broken for the community of Newtown. So instead of finding some eloquent way to end this I will leave you a favorite prayer of mine by St. Francis of Assisi
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.
