We Should Tell Them

5.23.19—We Should Tell Them

I was recently looking through some old poems when I stumbled across one that hooked me. It is a 2014 update of a song that I wrote in 1999 for a dear friend whom I learned had been molested by her babysitter when she was a kid. At the time, her story was the first of its kind that I had heard. It naturally broke my heart. Since that time, I have heard (and witnessed) many more terrible stories of childhood sexual trauma—and other forms of childhood trauma as well—and my heart still breaks for their reality today…

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing as a music teacher. I have my Master of Divinity and my Master of School Administration degrees, and yet I am outwardly using neither of those degrees on a daily basis. Yes, the process of getting the degrees influenced and changed me for the better. But sometimes I wonder why I spent so much time and money earning degrees that I do not need as an elementary music teacher. Sometimes I wonder if I’m wasting my life and call in this classroom. But then I remember the kids…the brokenness…the pain and heartache…mixed with promise and hope…and I remember that I can provide 45 minutes of goodness and attempted unconditional love to 700 students each week—and that’s big. I can also provide music…and music has a way of healing us when nothing else can—that’s big, too.

I don’t know what doubts you carry today, friend. I don’t know if you, too, wonder what you’re doing with your life—if you wonder how you can simply influence your family, much less the world. I don’t know if you have experienced a trauma from which you are still healing. I don’t know if you know someone who is hurting so deeply that it makes you cry. But I do know this: the God who provides us with goodness and true unconditional love is wooing you to accept that goodness and unconditional love and to try to share it with those around you—however you can, in whatever you do—even if it seems like your attempts are pointless.

Show up. Sit. Listen. Tell stories. Laugh. Give. Hug. Sing. Do your best work. Be patient in the midst of chaos. Remain calm when tempers flare. Smile. Drive someone to therapy. Realize that therapy is okay. Share a meal. Share a spare room. Share Jesus.

There is so much brokenness in the world. So much from which we must heal. But we have the Great Physician on our side and God wants to heal and redeem the world with and through us…and that’s just so big…

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“I Don’t Know About You But I Think We Should Tell Them”

No child should have to:
know all she knows,
see all she sees,
hurt all she hurts,
be all she is.

No child should have to:
face life alone,
doubt her next meal will come,
feel she’s not good enough,
believe who is she is, is wrong.

No child should have to:
joke to hide all the pain inside,
think she's weak if she cries,
fear the touch of another’s hand,
hear words that wound and damn.

But so many do.

Just look into eyes: shame.
Just listen to voices: humiliation.
Just look at shoulders: embarrassment.

If only they knew who they are.

If only they knew they are loved as they are:
Beautifully broken, resilient children of God,
Created and able to grow by the creativity of God,
Redeemed and made new by the grace of God…