Like a Lake

Lake Phewa, Nepal

These last couple of months I have been listening to a song by Sara Groves called 'Like a Lake'. She wrote this song inspired by Lake Kivu and the people of Rwanda, a people who have experienced unspeakable suffering.

so much hurt and preservation like a tendril round my soul so much painful information no clear way on how to hold it       when everything in me is tightening curling in around this ache I will lay my heart wide open like the surface of a lake wide open like a lake standing at this waters edge looking in at God's own heart I've no idea where to begin to swallow up the way things are       everything in me is drawing in closing in around this pain I will lay my heart wide open like the surface of a lake wide open like a lake bring the wind and bring the thunder bring the rain till I am tried when it's over bring me stillness let my face reflect the sky and all the grace and all the wonder of a peace that I can't fake wide open like a lake everything in me is tightening curling in around this ache I am fighting to stay open I am fighting to stay open open open oh wide open open like a lake

I thought of these words many times while I was in India.I love this song because it speaks of God's limitless capacity to hold all the sadness, rage, disgust, worry, uncertainty, confusion, contradiction and pain that I carry.  Especially when I feel powerless in the face of  injustice.

It's the most natural thing in the world for us to want to run away from pain and anything that makes us uncomfortable - both the suffering of others, and that which we face in our own lives. We resist it with everything we've got.  Sometimes, though, we just need to choose to face it head on.  Face it in all its ugliness and desperation, not hold it in and try to manage it, but allow it to affect us and then lay our feelings out honestly before God like the big expanse of a lake..  When we choose to lay our hearts wide open,  that's when we  discover God's own heart, his heart that is so much bigger than ours and that can hold it ALL. His compassion is a force greater than anything within us. It heals us, and it equips us to heal others.

... And peace will come.

'Bring the wind and bring the thunder, bring the rain till i am tried. 
When it's over bring me stillness, let my face reflect the sky...'