Last week I’m flying through the air in the wee early hours of my 32nd birthday. We’re somewhere over Germany when First Girl starts belting out “Happy Birthday.” Celebration knows no bounds and when joy spills over, all you can do is grab a cup and try to catch some.
Because joy isn’t always easy to come by, and the dark days seem to crowd in before you’ve even had a chance to soak in the sunshine.
It’s not three days later that news trickles over to this side of the world of another 32 year old. Except this one has died in an angry clash of hate. I’m broken for our nation and for brothers and sisters who daily experience this ugly. That I’m somehow immune and only forced to face it when it charges through headlines speaks to the level of privilege I’ve received through no work or worth of my own.
Yeah, we all have hardships and if you’ve walked with us a bit, you know life hasn’t always been smooth sailing. The reality that we’re finally here in Malta for two months making a movie just leaves me jaw-dropping grateful at the opportunity we’ve been given.
But I’ve never known the daily pain that so many face all because God gifted them with any one of the stunning shades of skin and race in His family. What should be celebrated is so often demeaned. And what should give us reason to marvel at God’s creativity and design is instead used as a justification for hate.
If our hearts our hurting, how much more must Abba’s be breaking?
Every birthday the world seems to get a little less rosy, the brokenness from sin glaring a little more harshly. And maybe we don’t feel like belting out in song or rising to meet yet another day with hope.
And yet….
As People of the Cross, we know that what this brokenness really shows is the ever present need for that Resurrected Savior who pulled each of us out of our filth and made us set apart and holy.
It’s a privilege we’ve received through no work or worth of our own. So maybe we love more extravagantly, weep more openly and keep inviting others to join us on the journey towards a better way? We celebrate who He is, and the day when He will make all things new and set all things right.