Look past your moment.  Take your focus away from your immediate surroundings. I had a hyper sensitive day in which a paradigm shift occurred in the reality that existed around me.  I couldn’t speak.  I could only observe.

At the hospital, a commercial came on from the PBS station that highlighted famous leaders, actors, and athletes in their glory moment.  The famous moments that we love seeing and they often give us goose bumps.  But looking past the glory of the moment, I realized it was the very thing that brought their downfall, their pain, or their death.   Marilyn Monroe’s beauty and fame never filled her longing desire for acceptance and love.

Leaving the hospital, I found myself downtown for dinner, and as we parked the car in a very safe and heavy populated area two prostitutes emerged from the ally.  Among young people walking around in prom dresses and families eating at local restaurants and celebrating birthdays, these two women were entangled in a web of destruction and pain.

Today, ice skating with my Bible study group was thrilling.  The children’s laughter, the cold air in your lungs, the joy of little children.  In the midst of all the joy was a father out of control angry with his little girl– a sweet little girl about 8 years old.  She was catching the wrath and name calling of the very man who should be calling her princess and correcting her behaviors in love.  Not everyone grows up with a father that loves them.

I envisioned Jesus who wept over Jerusalem…

“And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it” Luke 19:41-44

Jesus weeps over those in bondage, the world’s ideals of love and beauty, and the child who is abused.

Lord be with us in our depravity.  Comfort us in our pain.  Rescue those who are far from Your love.  Bring peace to the tormented mind.  Lift the countenance of the rejected.  Bring Joy to those grieving.  Instill hope to the hopeless.  Extend grace and mercy to the sinner.  Fill the proud with sincere humility.  Place words of exhortation in the gossip’s mind and mouth.  Bring understanding to the confused.  Extend healing to those in bondage. Provide a way out for the captured.  Sing over us Lord……

Sing your song of Amazing Grace….

“The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zephaniah 3:17