Ragamuffin

I watched Ragamuffin last weekend and I'm still thinking about it. Turning it over in my head.

I watched it.

I cried.

And I cried because it was so much like real life.

One of Rich's friends described him as, "like us, but more so." And I think that is true about his life, his life is like mine, but more so.

Most of time "Christian" movies seem to tie every fraying thread of story into a bow; every broken relationship is mended, every ache has a resolution, and it's like "Ta-da! Jesus just fixes everything!"

And a part of me wishes that this were true, actually all of me wishes this were true. I wish I could see everything broken made whole and every question answered, here, right now. I wish I was promised a resolution this side of the grave and a bow on every sad story.

But that's not how life works, sometimes it does and it's wonderful, but sometimes...often even, it doesn't.

Sometimes babies die and a mother hearts always ache.

Sometimes relationships are broken and never restored and sometimes the son never comes home.

Sometimes arms stay empty and sometimes winter is so long we forget what spring feels like.

Sometimes people we love walk away, leaving us broken and bleeding and sometimes they never come back.

Sometimes there are chasms are torn between a father and his child and sometimes death steps between them before it can be crossed.

Sometimes the heavens seem to echo empty as you beat bleeding fists against them and sometimes life ends with screaming brakes, broken glass, and warm blood soaking into asphalt.

We strain to see through a glass darkly and in the ache we all whisper the question, "How can this be good?"

Like everyone I have baggage woven in me. There are stories I don't tell for fear of hurting people and only making chasms deeper. And I cried because I realized that all these broken threads of story that I hold may have no resolution here. Everyone I love and I may breathe our last breath still holding shattered pieces and broken threads.

It's so hard to have faith in those moments. To hold on to hope and not give into despair when all you see is rubble takes courage that there is more to life that what you see.

I read this in a book last night,

"They found something richer than narrative--not just a chain of this, and this, and what happens next. Life was poetry, each scene woven through with innumerable threads. They could find glory in the moments that might seem like defeat to someone of lesser vision. This was one of those moments."

To have eyes that find glory in the moments that seem like defeat.

To have eyes that discern artistry in what appears to be pure chaos.

I want that so badly, it gives me an ache deep down. There is glory hiding, if we but had the eyes to see it.

Hold on. Hope is coming, Good is coming to sweep away all the ache and loss, for He has already begun the great reversal. He will turn backwards all pain and ache into joy, tears into laughter, loss into gain, and death into life.

I also read in the same book,

"She's not fleeing from death and darkness. She's trying to drag the world with her. To the mountain."

May I have eyes that see and love enough to drag the world with me towards the beauty they cannot yet see.