Mingled Waters

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God."

There is a deep brokenness to life. Some days I know it more than others. Some days I feel the Fall like a dull ache, a heaviness upon my chest. Some days, I find it easy to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those who weep, because my whole being is tuned to that inexpressible groaning of creation and our common longing to be whole again.

Today was one of those days. Heavy thoughts and conversations from the past few days sunk into my body overnight, and I woke with grief. With awareness of my own sins and failures as well as awareness of the tragic gaps between us and others, some of our own making, some that just . . . appear. I came to church dwelling very much in Lent.

At church, music rehearsal was dominated by the absence of our sound technician and corresponding problems, particularly since we use an electric keyboard rather than an actual piano. No sound = no keyboard. I was actually expecting a few snafoos during the morning, since our pastor was out of town, so I wasn't surprised. We never actually accomplished a full sound check, so when the service began, it was difficult for us musicians to hear one another -- Muffled notes in the sanctuary, my own voice and the rhythms of guitar close by.

The confirmation class that met before the service lasted until about 3 minutes before the service begins, making me antsy about getting upstairs and preparing to begin.

With a visiting preacher often comes a few other bumps in the liturgical road. Today, the pastor accidentally prepared a sermon from 2 Samuel 16 rather than 1 Samuel 16, so that the Old Testament reading that appeared in the bulletin did not match the sermon.

Somehow the third verse of the closing song did not get printed in the bulletin, so Elisa and I sang an inadvertent duet.

Why this litany of "failures" during corporate worship? Because despite these glitches, God made His presence known. Despite the poor monitor levels, the congregation was engaged in singing. Despite the Samuel mix-up, God's word was preached in power. Just as God worked in the service in spite of our human errors, so God works in us in the midst of our brokenness.

There is always a brokenness inherent in anything we do in this life, whether we are aware of it or not. In times when things run smoothly, it is easy for pride to take us captive so that we congratulate ourselves on our own competence, whether in our "excellent worship," or the "practical wisdom" we graciously extend to our friends, or our superior business sense, or our self-awareness ("why can't others simply be considerate like me?").

Pride does not lean on God's grace. For this is what makes me thankful for the days in which I dwell in brokenness: the deeper my sense of the brokenness, the greater my sense of God's grace. God has not abandoned us to brokenness. God does not disregard our pain, our failed relationships, our damaged emotions, our deluded thoughts. There is healing, joy that we only experience to the extent to which we have known the pain. Without brokenness, we would not see the radiance of redemption.

There is an undercurrent of deep sadness in life, but that mournful stream empties out into the vast, broad, deep, wide River of Life. Right now, the two streams are mingled, and as I drink from the river, I must taste both bitter and sweet.
But someday, ahh! someday . . .

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us."