It’s great to be back!

It’s great to be back!

Jobs are starting, homework is getting assigned, we’re all starting to get back into a general routine, and it’s great to be back!

As I made my way through this break, and even the first couple weeks of school, a certain theme kept popping up.  We are a broken people.  Over break, I got to spend some time with a couple of the boys that I had mentored when I lived in Reno.  And they had broken lives.  Lives full of pain and let-downs…disappointment and trouble.  Spending some time with my family members revealed the same thing happening in all of their lives.  We had done things to hurt each other in the past.  We do things that hurt other people all the time.  Most of the time, we hurt ourselves in the process.  We’re a broken people.

As I returned to Jessup, this theme intensified a bit.  A friend of mine going through a really hard season in her life.  Broken.  Another buddy dealing with some really tough, deep, identity-affecting events.  Broken.  A room full of teenagers up at Young Life camp, praying together, worshiping together, crying together, sharing their pain and insecurity and hurt together.  Broken.  In a meeting for one of my new jobs at school, a group of people worried and stressing and full of anxiety.  Broken.  And this is just some of it.  But that’s not the crazy part.

The crazy part is that all of this hasn’t made me sad.  In fact, it’s had quite the opposite effect.  And it’s not because I’m some crazy guy who likes seeing other people hurt.  Indeed, I think that I owe it to what God has allowed to accompany all of these “brokenness incidents.”

Upon returning to my life up here at Jessup, to my homework and my jobs and my meetings and my friends, I’ve really been struck by something in addition to the hurt of my friends.  Oddly enough, I’ve been struck by the power of love.  Of community.  There’s immense power in these two things, because it’s what we were created for.  We were created for shalom, which means nothing missing, nothing broken.  And living in a (generally) Christ-centered community full of genuine people who love one another and care for one another is a great way to experience that.

Today for Chapel, we broke up by class and I had the amazing opportunity of hanging out with the Juniors.  It was an awesome time of fellowship, as we sang together, prayed together, and said the Lord’s Prayer corporately.  Through it, God provided some perspective for all of this stuff I’ve been thinking about.  Psalm 113 says that we should praise the name of the Lord, both now and forever.  Even when we’re hurt, even when we’re broken.  Because he is good.  He is love.  He is caring.  He is shalom.  He is working through us to change the world.  He is working through the world to change us..  And in that perspective, our brokenness is really quite beautiful.  Yeah it hurts, yeah it sucks.  But that isn’t the important thing…because God’s already taken care of all that.  The important thing is that, in addition to all of this, God has given us an opportunity to be a shalom-people.  He’s given us people to love, and people to care for.  He’s given us community, and he’s given us friends.  And this is what I’ve found, upon returning to school and schedules and books and homework these past weeks.

We’re all broken.  But God’s given us the chance to be broken together…and because of this, it’s great to be back!

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