messy & beautiful

Recently, I have felt constantly bombarded by the reality that life is hard and messy and broken.
There are people I love who are deeply hurting, broken, and struggling. There are broken families and homes, people torn apart by messy relationships, and people turning their backs on God. On the news there are homicides all over Chicago and hundreds of horrible stories.
I think I usually feel and internalize these things more than the average person. I tend to want to fix and make better and I want things to work. I long for harmony. But, I can't fix the world, or the people I care about who are hurting, I can only love them.
I've caught myself saying so many times this week while talking to friends "why is life so messy?" or something along those lines. We need to be reminded of the beauty and goodness in life. I need to know that it will be ok. Because life is hard and messy and full of hurt.
This is how I've been processing. If we look at life on a spectrum we can choose to live in the middle of the spectrum and numb ourselves, refuse to be vulnerable and refuse to acknowledge the hurting and the hard. Maybe this is easier because we just don't have to deal with it. Or we can choose to recognize the ways that life just sucks sometimes and that things are not how they are suppose to be. I think that if we do that, we are also open to experience the polar opposite side of the spectrum. If we understand that depth of the hard then I think we can truly believe in the beauty of the good. We can live presently in the beauty of the goodness and the freedom of redemption when we have felt the constraints of heartbreak and pain. Living in the middle of the spectrum only allows us to experience snippets and pieces. I want life to the full. Life that is hard but life that has depth and overflowing with joy, because I get to live it.
I had my last day of hospice clinical today. I learned so much about life, while walking with and caring for those who are dying. It was a blessing and an experience I will never forget. It was a reminder that I cannot do it alone. I shrink and feel empty on my own, but I am sustained by God's love and promises. And I learned that it is so easy for me to put up walls because I am afraid to feel sad with a family or because I don't want it to be uncomfortable. However, it is so much more fulfilling to live vulnerable and just be uncomfortable. To enter in and to love--  not to fix-- but to just be human and love. The best experiences I had happened when I let my guard down and decided to say real and true things, not just the "right" thing, and when I looked into a patient's eyes or saw glimpses of their story. And how I learned over and over that God is with us, and he is for us. I see him in people's stories, in their tears and in their love for each other. I'm so thankful for that.
I'm thankful that God knows what we need. I'm thankful that I am small and cannot do it on my own. I'm thankful that I get to live a life that doesn't just involve numbing myself to get by, but involves tears and aches but uncontrollable laughter and new love, and sustaining joy and whimsy.
Life is messy, but it is so beautiful. I'm choosing to open my eyes and my heart to believe these truths day after day. Join me? I promise you won't regret it.