This week.

I’ve been out of the bubble and into reality for less than a week and the brokenness could easily be overwhelming. Just the conversations I’ve overheard and the magnitude of people who have been hurt. It’s dark and disheartening, dreary and discouraging. People are slowly dying dangerous and degrading deaths, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It seems like the darkness is closing in and its paralyzingly depressing if that’s all there is. Because that means there is no hope. Hopelessness that says darkness is stronger than light and the light doesn’t stand a chance in the fight. Instantly KO’d in the ring, the hopelessness sings in victory, gleaming arrogantly with biting mockery of the light.

But that’s just it. That’s not it. That’s not it at all. Yes, after the fall brokenness entered in and our sin tainted all good things. But the story doesn’t end there. Goldilocks doesn’t get eaten by the three bears and Red Riding Hood escapes the claws of the wolf. Not because they deserved safety, for they did all things wrong. But because grace is not what you deserve. Salvation is offered freely to all who would take her in. And she ushers in with her redemption and restoration, a light that can’t be overtaken by darkness, but one who destroys it with its mere presence. As it presents itself, broken things are redeemed, impure things made clean. It doesn’t mean perfection on earth, necessarily. But it means the presents of hope, love, peace. It means I get to take part in imparting a part of that peace and hope. I get to usher in restoration and redemption. I get to usher in the Kingdom of Heaven.