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The Breaking

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.



Remember. 

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.


Today our hearts our broken. Our minds are heavy with the tragedy of the horrible violence that took place in what should be, a safe haven. 
For all of us, it's painful.
For those of us who are parents, the pain is partnered with fear. 
Fear for our children. Fear for our way of life. Fear of the ultimate loss.
The loss of a child.

We feel broken. We think of the grieving families tonight. We can imagine scenes of dark rooms, of the floods of tears, and our hearts break. We think of our own children, and we are shattered, smashed, in pieces, scattered to the depths of our souls. 

We doubt the sanity of humankind.
In a world where children die, how can there be hope? How can there be love? 
For those families, tonight, they are breaking.

But. Yet. Somehow.
They are not alone. 
Their children? No longer have one set of grieving parents. They have the whole world. All of us, must carry them to eternal life. All of us, must grieve, must break, because as we break, we are made anew.
Do not be afraid of grief. 
Tonight we lament together, tonight we break together, so that none of those precious children, not one, will be lost from us forever, but will be found, and with them, us also. 

In the breaking, do we find hope.


Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children. Lamentations 2:19






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