By Matthew Christian

What do you do when the world goes dark?
When all the lights blink out, every glimmer and spark
And you’re stranded with a turbulent heart
Hopelessly staring at a thousand question marks? 

What do you do when words can no longer articulate 
The chaos, the change, the sinking sands sucking the soul away?
What do you do when your heart is restless,
Ever roving and raging everywhere, 
Lost?

What do you do when the pasted smile on your face
Saying “Everything is perfectly fine”
Is painfully fake; a false facade hiding fear and shame
Afraid that others won’t accept your frailty and vulnerability?

What do you do when no one ever really understands
The magnitude of misery that you face day in and day out?
How despair sinks its teeth into your flesh and bone
Transforming your heart into unfeeling stone
No!

I didn’t ask for this 
I didn’t sign up for pain and trauma
I didn’t sign up to see a whole family broken
I didn’t sign up for innocence being scarred
I didn’t sign up to be abandoned and alone
I didn’t sign up for being made helpless
I didn’t sign up to grieve the loss of life
I didn’t sign up. . . for a lot of things
None of us did
Yet here we are
From the first anniversary to the ninth
From diagnosis to treatment
From virus to vaccine
From problem to solution
From normal to upside down
From thriving to barely surviving

We all grieve loss
We all carry scars
We all wrestle with pain
We are all broken in the end

But what if I told you broken was beautiful?
What if I told you shattered pieces can still become a masterpiece of art?
What if I told you the silence was not the absence of God, but His attentive listening?
What if I told you that the emptiness you feel is a grace from God?
What if I told you that your tears are watering a garden of new life?
What if I told you that hope like the stars shines brighter the darker it gets?

The truth of the gospel is the most beautiful to the broken
Each shattered fragment of a dream is for a reason
Redeemable in the hands of the Master Artist 
The silence
An invitation to our souls to lament to a listening and loving Father
Our emptiness
A reminder that this is not our home and to find our satisfaction in God alone
Each tear
Caught in God’s bottle, declare the truth that today is a gift from God filled with new mercies
And hope
Hope like starlight shines bright in our darkest night 

So what do we do when the world goes dark
And we can’t express the depths of our heart?
What do we do when we feel stuck
With the gravity of life weighing down on us? 

I don’t have all the answers
Neither do you
But the One who formed us in our mother’s womb
Is faithful to complete the good work He has begun
Equipping us with all we need for life and godliness
Forgiving our debts and transforming our hearts
And redeeming our life from the deepest pit
He knows. 
He was always by your side.
He is here now.
He will never leave.
Ever.
And He 
Loves
You.

by Dan Christian

12 Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted.
13 Why does the wicked renounce God and say in his heart, “You will not call to account”?14 But You do see, for You note mischief and vexation, that You may take it into Your hands; to You the helpless commits himself; You have been the helper of the fatherless.
15 Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till You find none.
16 The Lord is king forever and ever; the nations perish from his land.
17 O Lord, You hear the desire of the afflicted; You will strengthen their heart; You will incline Your ear
18 to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more.

Psalm 10:12-18 (ESV)

Almighty God, I cry out to You on behalf of the powerless.

Father, I am outraged at the injustice and oppression that wreaks havoc in our land. 

Many of those in positions of power are misusing their power to mistreat those without power. 

And the pent-up anger of a powerlessness that has been unjustly—cruelly—treated again and again explodes in violence that only feeds the brutality of the powerful.

God, please bring an end to this vicious cycle of death and destruction!

Lord, Your Word says You hear the desire of the afflicted, and there are afflicted people on all sides of this chaos—afflicted people who are powerless to save themselves from the injustice that is thrust on them.

Father, I cannot begin to understand the pain of these who face cruel injustice day after day, year after year, century after century.

I do not understand the depth of their pain, but I can understand in a small way the experience of powerlessness. I have felt that.

And in fact I feel something of that powerlessness now, seeing a centuries-long problem that infiltrates every corner of our society. I feel very small.

But that is precisely why I pray to You, O God. 

You are not powerless. “To You the helpless commits himself…”

You are the God of justice. Make Your power and justice known!

God, You see, You hear, You act. 

Please open my eyes to see the pain on all sides of this divide.

Please allow me to hear the stories of the powerless, that my heart would break as Yours does.

Please show me how to act. But whatever action You lead me to, may it only come after much weeping over all that I see and grieving over all that I hear.

Help me to see and hear like Jesus did, in ways that move my heart to compassion and my hands and voice to action.

I do not want to remain silent. I do not want to cower in fear over saying the wrong thing or being misunderstood. 

So I start with prayer. I begin with lament. “Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up Your hand; forget not the afflicted!”

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!