The Light

I want to write about it but I don't.  And I wonder if a lot of people are feeling that way.  There are words - but not enough and maybe, not the right ones.  I want to hope but I struggle.

Maybe, it's just pen to paper, heart to heart that heals.  Maybe, it's voice.  It's listening.  Sharing.  Cleaving.

I could be wrong but it seems I've seen much more faith based commentary, postings, stories, this time around - how sad to have to say, 'this time around' - and I think it's because they were children- babies, really.  Tiny.

My kids were with their dad this weekend and when the two little ones came home, I hugged them both, hard and looked at them.  I looked long at my five year old.  My kindergartner.  At how small she is. I think of how she wouldn't have been able to grasp, really, the evil.  Honestly, I can see that she would fear, but confusion, too, would have clouded.  Looking at her, I pray that it was quick and that they didn't have time to process.  The cruelty or the pain.  And I have to believe that God somehow miraculously overrode the darkness in those moments.  And that's what I'm seeing out there in the conversation we do and don't want to end - a new hope-filled discussion on God's presence and the afterlife.  Because when it's babies, we need a heaven.  I have to believe this because otherwise, it's too much.  It is too much right now for those families.

When Verity touched my face this morning with her little hand, just that size for a short time longer, the tears came for those who won't feel or hold the little hand of their child, won't experience that child's remarkable child-like forgiveness and glee.  How will they celebrate Christmas?  How? How do they tell the kids left, anymore, that the good guys always win?  The siblings.  The twin.  How do the nightmares go away?  And the missing?  I have no idea.

We are best when we are loving children.  I think our parent sides are the best sides of us.  And when we can't protect our children  ....when the President spoke these words, and told us we all needed to help, my cynicism wanted to sneer,  no, I'm not trusting the village anymore because one person gets it wrong and this what you have.  But then the stories are there of those beautiful teachers who are martyrs and I know that children can bring out in us what is of God.  God is a father.  And a mother.  And I have to trust somehow that in the majority of us is that God given light.  And that it has more power than the darkness in one.

Could we be a multitude of light?  Are we sick yet of the dark?

This Christmas, let's bring back the light of the world.