Come By Here

I am sad.

Sad for a childhood friend whose father died a week after mine, in January, and whose younger sister recently died in a tragic car crash.

Sad for another family, friends of a friend, people I don't even know. The mother went to the hospital to have her baby, and the baby died. And then the mother died.

Sad for the family of Noah's baseball coach, who accidentally brushed an exposed wire while at work and died last night. He leaves behind a wife and several children.

I am sad. But I am also upset that I have this cloud of sadness over me. The uneasiness clings to me like a film, and I just can't shake it. My emotions are so highly attuned to sadness right now that I can feel the depression lurking a little nearer.

But maybe that's not a bad thing. Because maybe it's not all about me.

We are told to mourn with those who mourn. I haven't always been very good at that. It's too easy to move on with our own lives, our own preoccupations. After all, who wants to be sad? We'd much rather be, well, preoccupied. But my sadness is a constant reminder of the pain these people are going through minute by minute. And maybe I need to get my eyes off myself (especially when no tragedy has befallen my family, thank God), and be reminded that my sadness is but a pittance compared to those who are truly grieving; get some perspective, Amy. And instead of feeling sorry for myself, I need to raise my eyes to those who are hurting, and ultimately to the One who holds all this sadness close to himself.

I don’t know how comfort comes to the brokenhearted. But I do know that we were promised he would come close, and a good God can make himself known in the midst of injustice and tragedy. I pray he does that this week. Today. Right now. Because he is the only way any of this can be redeemed.

And I think we all need God to Come By Here.

Come, come and meet us here.
Come and touch our tears
That we may weep no more
Come, come and meet our pain
Come and lift our lame
That we may limp no more
Come that we may want no more


From Third World Symphony by Shaun Groves