Aleppo

Oh, my heart is breaking into a million pieces over Aleppo today.

There's a lot that I should do, but I can't help but read article after article-just glued to this horrible massacre unfolding now, in 2016, while we all watch and let it pass. I am angered today by my tears- tears accomplish nothing.

The executions, the 100+ unaccompanied children trapped in a building taking fire, the starvation, the goodbye tweets. Oh, my heart is heavy to imagine for one second what it might be to live through this.

I'm holding close my baby. Crying to imagine what it must be to not be able to feed her when she's hungry. To not have water when she cries of thirst. To be unable to calm her fears, to promise her that the sun will rise tomorrow-or that she'd be there to see it anyways.

What feels like all too often this past year, when my heart is heavy and hurting, when my tears are too many and I can't imagine what it is I'm to do, I repeat these words:

"You hear us calling, you hear us calling, Abba Father
 You hear us calling, you hear us calling, Abba Father
 Lord have mercy
 Christ have mercy
 Lord have mercy
 Christ have mercy."

  The Brilliance- Prayers of the People

For anyone else grieving over this on-going tragedy, here's something you CAN do- donate to preemptive love. I've been following these guys work the last month or so and have been so impressed. They're feeding thousands of people who have made it out of Aleppo. You can read about some of their work here: https://preemptivelove.nationbuilder.com/aleppo

Jubilee's Christmas Poem

In the midst of this darkness and chaos and strife

You entered the world and you breathed in its life

So helpless and cold, the room filled up with cries,

You looked up at our tender and jubilant eyes

In the gaze of this fragile, immaculate face

We also felt helpless and desperate for grace

Such innocence we’d never dreamed could exist

A picture of promise and infinite bliss

When I think of my little girl’s tale still untold

When I pray for her path that has yet to unfold

I’m filled up with hope because all that’s in sight

Is a future that’s full of potential and bright

--

But also at times I am swallowed by fear,

For stories of heartache are painfully near

Why should I hope, and why should I pray?

Our joy could be crushed into sorrow today

For innocence seems like a short, fleeting breath

Choked out in the grip of our suff’ring and death

--

Yet when doubt sings its whispers in my straining ear

When no spark in this world full of darkness appears

I remember that poor insignificant inn

Above which a star shone a shimmering glint

When light from a vast, insurmountable height

Came down in the form of an infant that night

God’s answer and comfort to innocent cries

Was found not in an audible word, but a life

A father’s unearned, inconceivable love

Was instilled in the life and the heart of a son

Who entered the world in the form of a child

Like my little one, so meek and so mild

He too endured hardship and tasted our pain

He too had his innocence stolen away

In a plan to redeem what is lost and corrupted

And all that our evil and sin has disrupted

All darkness was pierced and enveloped by light

That appeared in the inn on that humblest of nights

Written by Mark