i'm sitting down with a sad, and overwhelmed heart. but a heart that is trying to learn everyday to turn to God. and the past few days have taught me that more than ever. i just got home from a funeral of a young man from Raleigh who committed suicide yesterday. he was the son of one of my sunday school teachers, and the older brother of a friend my age as well as a girl who i ran cross-country and track with. i did not know him, but this has just broken my heart. to think of the pain his family is going through is just beyond me right now. there's so much that comes into question when something like this happens. and it makes me think, are my problems really that big? it makes you just want to grab life and cherish every moment and turn and tell everyone i know how much i love them. during the service they had a family friend sing accapella, Amazing Grace, it was absolutely beautiful. he had encouraged others to join in and a few verses in we did, sitting there hearing these words of the comfort of this amazing gift of God's grace, being sung quietly from the pews but with hearts full of emotion, gosh it was just one of those moments i don't think i will ever forget.

and then today, i've kind of been running around trying to get forms turned in and Christmas shopping done, but then to hear about the just unspeakably horrible shooting in Connecticut. my heart was again just shattered into pieces. how how how could this happen? its so confusing to me, and i prayed last night that i didn't even know how to express these feelings of confusion, but i know that God hears it all even when i don't know what to say. my mind turns back to a sermon a couple of weeks ago (that i think i've already blogged about) but just thinking over and over again that God restores us. He is the only one who has the picture of "what ought to be" and it is complete in Him, that is what hope is, and that is where my hope lies and i just pray that all of the families that are experiencing any tragedy in their lives can find this hope today, and all days.

i have been re-reading Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis and I was struck by the chapter entitled: "The Shocking Alternative" which explores the concept of free will and the question of how an all powerful God can let evil invade this world... "free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the thing that makes possible any love goodness or joy worth having... the happiness which God designs for His highter creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight... If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will - this is, for making a live world in which creatures can do real good or harm and something of importance can happen, instead of a toy world which only moves when He pulls the strings - then we may take it it is worth paying."

its hard not to be mad at God for letting these things happen, and its hard not to doubt and ask questions. but that excerpt reminds me that God is not simply allowing this evil to take over, He is still in charge. but there are things about His creation that we will never understand until we are sitting next to Him. and goodness to be a parent of a lost child today I would not want to hear that, but I would also hope that they can find some sort of peace, that today their child does sit next to God. their child is singing with the angels and is in a place in which they will never have to experience any pain again.