Photo By: pol sifter
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King, Jr., from “Strength to Love”
Monday afternoon, many around the world convulsed in shared horror at the sight of paired explosions on crowded city streets. Thoughts of 911 rekindled in the minds of those who had witnessed the events of that horrible day. Nearly 200 persons, their families and their friends have now begun a long journey of dealing with personal loss. The rest of us – the responders, the eyewitnesses, the city, and all those who saw the event unfold in social media will also have to deal with loss in some manner. We may all be affected in some way by this single hateful action, a darkness threatening to overshadow hearts and minds even as the smoke still rolled over shattered streets and broken bodies.
And still, there is hope…
Hope During Tragedy
It’s been sixteen years since my wife Amy and I were at our daughter’s bedside in Children’s Hospital, Oakland California. Emily had drowned in our backyard pool, and she passed away after three weeks on life support. This was easily the darkest period of both our lives, yet even while we went through this tragedy, there was hope.
“You are the light of the world”
Jesus Christ, Matthew 5:14
It was only a matter of minutes before our community responded to help us. Friends at church and around the world began to pray immediately. Our pastor was at the local emergency room within half an hour. Our family was at Children’s Hospital that afternoon. Members of our church began visiting us at the hospital the next day and were there nearly every day we were there. Financial needs began to be met on our behalf by my employer and fellow employees; it seemed as if everyone who knew us or knew of us stepped up to give whatever they could to support us.
Even during the most difficult moments of sorrow and pain, everything that our magnificent extended family shared with us shined the light of hope into our personal darkness. The outpouring of love and care was enormous, and it provided a tangible shelter from the storm we found ourselves in.
This same hope was evident Monday afternoon as police and support personnel began to do the job they are trained to do, as bystanders ran towards danger to help the injured, as people warned others away, and as we all reached out to each other for comfort. Hope grows wherever compassion and love are poured out. We all need be first responders and bring hope and light when it is needed in the situations we find ourselves.
Hope And Grief
In the aftermath of tragedy, the most natural response is a time of grieving. There is a time when we need to deal with whatever loss we have experienced, and it’s a difficult but important step in the healing process. It’s during critical times like this that the enemy really pushes lies at us, trying to get us to take our eyes off the hope that is available to us during a time of grief.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation. Of whom then shall I be afraid?”
King David, Psalm 27:1
As Amy and I began to adjust to our lives after Emily’s death, grief was part of our daily lives. The loss of a child is a hole in the heart that nothing can fill; it’s part of who you are going to be for the rest of your life. Grieving is what happens as you begin to move forward with this hole inside you; nothing feels the same, nothing is as it once was. Your perspective has been changed, and your life becomes different from what you once had. This is where the enemy attempts to turn necessary sorrow into destructive despair. We must continue to put our trust in the source of our salvation in order to deny the fear and the lies that try to invade.
Sorrow can run its course while hope remains alive in your heart. And as we moved through the following weeks and months without Emily, the support of our extended family continued. What helped the most was that our church friends began to ease us back into things we had enjoyed before the accident – they bravely faced the realities of our changing lives with us, and our continued relationships revitalized our hearts with the hope we needed to get through the time of grief.
In order to move our nation forward in hope, we must all do the same to support each other, to do whatever we can to serve as needed, to seek to establish and restore relationships, to speak words of comfort and hope that the hurting need to hear, to be the light that continues to shine even as hate and destructive words try to create their own strongholds. We cannot partner with lies and hate in any way if we are to be the light that this nation needs, whether in times of tragedy, in times of struggle, and even in times when things seem to be going well.
We need to become caregivers, willing to work with the broken and the hurting in order to bring healing and restoration in their lives.
Be the light. Be love. Be hope. And let them shine bright.
[custom_author=Andrew]