But do you trust me?

If you watch the new and/or scroll through your social media of choice, you can't hide from the news of some of the awful, heartbreaking things going on in our world right now.  It's hard not to get lost in the opinions and disagreements on how we should react and respond, but I think we can agree on one thing: our world is full of brokenness.
                                 
This isn't new.  Don't you remember history and social study classes growing up?  Lessons about the Civil War, Christopher Columbus, the Crusades, WWII, etc, etc, etc.  Bad stuff right? But it's taken me till age 25 to really start feeling the gravity of processing our world's past. AND now our current mistakes?  Poverty, human trafficking, school shootings, racial division, etc, etc, etc.  Will we ever learn our lesson?

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Part of everything above is me ranting/processing this month, this week, this day.  Another part is me grieving for anyone experiencing injustice anywhere right now.  Another part is me realizing how indifferent I have been to these injustices as it is easier and I honestly prefer to focus on every single little worry, chore, and joy of my day.  The last part is huge. The last part is me remembering that we are broken but celebrating that the human race is not broken beyond repair // Look around. The Middle East,  Ferguson Missouri, your work place, your hidden but present family disfunction.   Everywhere you walk, people are screaming for a savior.  Someone to fix someone or something or some situation which seems so impossible.

For God did not send his Son [Jesus] into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him / John 3:17

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved / Acts 4:12

For the Son of God came to seek and save the lost / Luke 19:10

And everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved / Acts 2:21

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not parish but have eternal life / John 3:16

Jesus didn't come to make our lives on this earth perfect or even comfortable.  He came to save us from this world that we made a mess of...that I have made a mess of.  Thank you Lord that I am not broken repair and that the only lesson I can hold fast to is that you are the solution.

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One last thought: yesterday a friend shared with me and a few other ladies something her professor had said in class.  That even in our moments when things are NOT good, one bit; God is asking us, "But do you trust me?"  This friend is having lots of stupid, stupid little and big bad things pile up in her life right now.  It was encouraging to hear her say she was finding freedom in that simple question from our sovereign God.

I instantly applied that question to stuff going on in my own daily life that is dragging me down. From navigating singleness to pouring out myself physically and mentally to my patients in an intensive care unit to making sense of the atrocities of ISIS to knowing that there are people out there without a nation let alone a physical shelter to call home.

But do you trust me?  

.....I have tried putting my trust in everything BUT you, Lord.  The world has tried. We are tired. We are feeing the gravity of our depravity. We need a solution. We have you. We have a Savior who has and will continue to do the impossible in our world and our hearts.  

Help us trust. Help us believe.
[Old photo dug out from sometime in college. This is my friend Patrick. He is a teacher in China. He is changing the world one student at a time. He is bringing joy to the world one dance move at a time =D He also loves to teach history and social studies, go figure.]