Those who have suffered great pain of injury or loss are joined to one another with bonds of a special authority. The closest bonds we will ever know are bonds of grief. The deepest community one of sorrow. ~Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
What we often want for ourselves and for our children is ease. I stood with my feet firmly planted on a dusty road in Nicaragua wishing for all the world that this foreign landscape wouldn’t root itself into tangles in my heart. A place as wild as the injustice that lives there. But the soul can never un-see what the eye has staked there so unwittingly. Truth is not easily undone. I spent the first twenty years of my life wishing for a better past and the next twenty righting every conceived wrong. Now I know that making something straight doesn’t always make it true. I cannot whitewash this life and I finally see that the colors there, dyed through by heartache, are deep and garnet stained. Maybe redemption always comes by blood. (rephrased McCarthy or maybe just rephrased Jesus)
So, if we can never undo this grief, then what is to become of us and what is to become of our brother?
We can only stand side by side, bearing one another’s burdens in joy, and seeing in him and in ourselves, a beauty that only this affliction can forge.
And then we remember that we are people who were always walking to a Cross, sometimes carrying our brother, and sometimes being carried by him. Both of us ushered along by ten thousand angels. One thing is certain. This was never supposed to be easy. Love never is.
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I can hardly think of anything else this week. I hope you’ll follow along as the Compassion bloggers share the stories of the people of Uganda.
Let’s bring some kids home.
Beautiful, Edie. Thank you.
My pastor gave a message on generosity yesterday, and for the first time in my life I heard a message on this topic that was unlike any other. He just asked, what if we desired to bless others more than we worried about our own future security? How would the world change?
Life changing. Love this post today.
amen precious friend
you know i needed this
Our church will have its 6th mission trip to Nicaragua this summer and I was fortunate enough to go on one with my son who was 16 at the time and it was life changing and we hope to go back someday. It’s impossible for me to truly be able to put into words all the different ways your life is blessed by trying to be a blessing to others in this way.
What a beautiful post! I’m a first time visitor here and I’m really glad I happened to come today. Thank you for starting my morning in such a beautiful way 🙂
left me in tears . . . beautiful and haunting.
Thanks Edie for this post. After reading several of the Uganda bloggers’ posts, I headed over to Compassion and signed up to sponsor 4 year old Joshua. I spent time in Uganda during college, and those children impacted me like nothing else ever has, and have been in my heart since that time. Looking forward to being a (little) part of his life and know it will be a blessing for our family as well.
Sweet blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News.
Do you have any tips on how to get listed in Yahoo News?
I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there!
Many thanks