Me too

LS YL has had the honor to walk with students and the community in this difficult time.  Our hearts break, we have cried with students for students, prayed with them and for them, listened, and continuing to create community around them.  They are not grieving alone.  They are surrounding one another, coming together, and able to say, "me too."  "I feel that too."  

Last night we had our weekly YL event called Club.  I had the honor to speak to students.  The message was simple.  Two words.

Me too.

I shared from the Magicians Nephew of the Chronicles of Narnia series an excerpt that symbolized this so well:  Digory is a young boy in this part of the story and he is about to lose his mom to a disease.  He begs Aslan (The Lion) for help.  

“Please—Mr. Lion—Aslan, Sir?” said Digory working up the courage to ask.  “Could you—may I—please, will you give me some magic fruit of this country to make my mother well?”

C.S. Lewis explains, “Up till then the child had been looking at the lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them.  Now in his despair he looked up at his face.  And what he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life.  For the tawny face was bent down near his own and wonder of wonders great shining tears stood in the lion’s eyes.  They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the lion must really be sorrier about his mother than he was himself.”

“My son, my son,” said Aslan.  “I know.  Grief is great.  Only you and I in this land know that yet.  Let us be good to one another…”We do not grieve alone.

Those two powerful words are saying- ME TOO.  Jesus like Aslan is with is in our grief.  Sometimes we look at God like a scary lion, his claws, his power.  But if we LOOK UP we see He is with us and CRIES with us.

God is for you not against you! He did not cause you pain. He knows you pain and feels it. He also can do something amazing for our pain. He brings life to it. He takes it all on and uses it for good. You are not your pain.  You are a child of God.  You are his son or daughter.  He loves you and wants to take your pain daily and give your life.

Let us be good to one another…”We do not grieve alone.

Bronco Strong- Fox 4 News Clip