Last weekend on my flight back from D.C., I eased into a seat next to a woman named Rogan. “You are beautiful, and I love your smile!” she turned and exclaimed—what kindness. We began conversing, sharing of our weekends before and our weeks ahead, and she spoke of how she moved here from Iran many years ago. I expressed how very glad I felt that she came to America, how I wanted to say “Welcome!” to her even many years later. “You don’t think I’m a terrorist?” she joked—and we both knew her words asked a very real question. “Of course not!” I smiled back—and I prayed she would let the honesty of my words sink deep into her soul.
Our conversation shifted, changed cadence, and she told me of her family—her voice then became hard, her words bitter. “My son died when he was 18—and let me ask you, where was God?” she spoke quickly. “Either He was deaf, or blind, or weak—or He is the Devil. I cannot follow a God like that, so now I find god in myself—I am good, and fair, and just—I may feel lonely, but I know I won’t fail myself.” She talked desperately, her words laced with hurt, years of walking this path.
My mind raced with prayers, asking Jesus to let me be a comfort in her life, asking Him to let her find Hope again—and this trip, this conversation, my role arose only to be a listener, a witness to her wounds. She spoke desperately, quickly, overriding my comments or questions with paragraphs and tangled stories—a deluge of emotions—and I can only pray that my eyes and posture conveyed some of the peace and hope I know. I wish I could have loved her better.
If we had more time—if our paths cross again, and if the time is right—here is what I would want to voice with an abundance of compassion: I would want to tell her softly that the God of the universe is weeping, and has wept, with her, in her pain. After listening, after sitting in her hurt, when her heart feels soft instead of hard, I would want to tell her about how God isn’t blind or deaf—but how He has entered our pain, our grief, our anger—how He has shared it, felt it, borne the full weight of its terror—and how He knows her suffering and aches at it all. I would tell her how He is not weak, not the devil—but how there is a Story far greater—a story that will bring redemption so glorious and beautiful that all other suffering will fade to a distant, imperceptible shadow because of the splendor. I would tell her how she can find a Foundation again outside of herself, a place where she is welcomed and not alone, where she hasn’t been failed or forgotten. I would cry too and pray that Jesus would wrap her in a hug more beautiful and peace-bringing and pain-erasing than one I could ever give, and I would ask Him to let her see glimpses of her story redeemed even today.
// I’m sitting here typing this story with the back door swung wide open; I’m watching the rain fall heavily from above, thinking of the God who weeps. Rend Collective just announced a new song—a raw and beautiful work speaking into the terror of our world today: “Lord, will you weep with me?…I will wrestle with Your heart, but I won’t let You go...What was true in the light is still true in the dark; You’re good and You’re kind and You care for this heart. Lord, I believe you weep with me. Turn my lament into a love song—turn my lament into an anthem...” We have a God who weeps with us—press on, friends.