Beauty in the Broken

The last week was a difficult one for my colleagues and me at Calvary Memorial Church, and for much of our congregation as well. Two Friday nights ago, Gillian Lundgren, a fifteen-year-old daughter of one of our staff, took her own life. I did not personally know her well, but I did know her, and found the news an utter shock, not least as someone who works with students in my other and previous jobs. Not 36 hours later, our senior pastor, Todd, in a breaking voice shared the news with the congregation during our Sunday services.

Then came Monday morning. It quickly became clear to me that all of our employees, the majority of whom might not even be fully aware when we host memorial services, were not only devastated by this tragedy but already going above and beyond the call of duty to prepare for the Thursday evening visitation and Friday morning memorial service. There was a communal dedication and attention and effort given to this task that I have never before experienced.

Needless to say, all of us dearly wish we would not have had that work to do this past week. On this side of eternity, however, our task is to be the hands and feet of Jesus when (not if) tragedy comes. And I think that is just what we saw this week: the redeeming power of the Lord Jesus energizing our work. It was the Holy Spirit driving our collective accomplishment of hosting over two thousand guests for the visitation and the memorial service, allowing the Lundgren family and hundreds of Gillian and her parents' friends and peers to mourn the loss and yet hope in the promise that she, to quote her obituary, "is now whole and in the presence of her Heavenly Father."

In the midst of this awful tragedy, the grace of God flowed and was manifested in our staff community's rallying to the cause to support our colleague and friend.

This coming Monday will likely be a "normal" day at work for us staff. There will be emails to read and write, meetings to attend, sermons and lessons to prepare, congregants to meet and visit, programs and events to plan, bills to pay, and more. But there's the grace of God in that, too. The grace that redeems our brokenness, sanctifies our work, and enables us to minister to those who are still grieving and to proclaim the power of gospel, bringing the only real hope we have into a dark and broken and yet beloved of God world.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time."

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV)