Looking towards hope

This is going to be a heavy post.  I feel things deeply and sometimes I won't realize something is "simmering" until it comes up to the surface.  When it bubbles up I've learned if I process through it I can release it.

I'm going to process here.  Yesterday a friend of mine and I went on a walk.  It was lovely.  During our walk she shared that a 7th grader in her son's school took his own life recently.  So, so sad.  I don't know any of the specific details so I'm only going to work through my own feelings with this.

A life was cut short.  That makes me sad.  My twins are a year younger than this young man.  That makes me feel afraid.  I grieve for the parents of this young man and those who knew him well.  I grieve for the community and the loss they feel.  I am sad that we live in a world where not all people know they are loved.  (Not a fault statement--just a sad declaration).

This morning I played the piano and sang.  I started crying and I couldn't figure out why.  Because this was simmering.  Music brings me closer to God than anything else.  When death touches my life I turn to songs of my faith.  Hearing their familiar words, feeling their familiar melodies is soothing.  Tears flow.  I release the sadness and am reminded that the circumstances of this world are hard.  This is a broken world.  But there's a promise of hope in Jesus.  That's what joy is.  Joy is looking ahead to the hope and not focusing on the mess right in front of us.

My youngest son feels things very deeply like I do.  He's very upset that the fun parts of summer (2 different kinds of camp through church) have been cancelled.  He's personally angry at China 😳 I'm trying to encourage him to see that even though the fun he had planned on was cancelled we'll still do other things.  He's not impressed with that logic.

My prayer is that he will learn to use his deep feelings for good while also understanding how to look towards hope.