Sometimes it's hard not to feel like we're losing. The week before last, I woke in the middle of the night to awful news in an email that disturbed me as I fell back asleep. I woke again in the morning - hoping it wasn't real, but it was. A cloud seemed to float above me that morning. It's hard to approach a normal day with the dark staring at you like that. The thought so surreal, like the Cheshire cat's teasing grin. I spent a part of my day, trying to compose myself and move on, which seemed worse. Disrespectful.
It's hard when it feels like death is winning. Why does it get to win? That's how I've felt with every mass shooting over the last few years - though less so each time, the repetition numbing me slightly more with each report. It sounds terrible, I know, but to some extent it's a conscious numbing, because I can't let the weight of each death settle on me, crushing.
Then tonight, there's Paris. A city that holds a piece of my heart, from a defining time in my life. I think about people innocently going about their Friday night in the greatest city in the world, mercilessly killed. In the name of some thing no one fully understands. I have a lump in my throat, and going to sleep seems unfair. I am not numb to this.
As a Christian, this is one of my greatest theological struggles, when I want to shake my fist at the sky filled with the proverbial heavens - "Why again?"
Each age has had its own brand of darkness, certainly, but I struggle to say, "Oh death where is your victory?", for so oft it seems we see it. Then I find myself weary in the fight, even if the fight is not against death itself, rather to have hope in spite of perceived and some all-too-real perils.
It becomes clear, we live in a tension. Sometimes there it feels similar to stretching a tight or sore muscle. I know that the Lord is good, and that the fight is fixed, but the blows along the way can make it hard to get off the ground again.
Then the next question is, how do we - how do I - fight this battle? When fear has already taken such hold in this world and evil is no stranger hidden away in the shadows, what can be done?
When I feel powerless and defeated, all I can think is to say or do is mutter or tell a simple prayer, "God, where are you? Show yourself." My only hope is that He will be made known and that in Him hope and freedom will be found, in and in spite of everything. And I find comfort in knowing His heart is also grieved.
