That's How the Light Gets In

Last week Bryan and I went to grief counseling for the third time.  Judy, our counselor, shared a quote with us from a Leonard Cohen song called "Anthem."  I've been thinking about it ever since.

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

I guess there are multiple layers to this that I keep returning to.  The part that draws me most is "There is a crack in everything/ That's how the light gets in."  It's so true.  In my life, the parts of my story that are cracked are the parts that show Christ most brightly.  Where I am broken -- be it by my own doing or by someone else's -- that is where Christ shines brilliantly.  Without fail, the times when I have seen God's faithfulness the clearest and most vividly, where He is radiant and most compelling, are the times when my world is cracked.  Life without Samuel is broken at its very core, but I can see God's light with more clarity than ever before.  His light casts rays over everything; even in the darkest of days, God's light shimmers over me.  He glows with goodness, kindness, peace, faithfulness, and love.  In the darkness, His light shines the brightest.

And as God's light filters through the cracks in my broken heart, it shines on what is rotten and sinful.  It illuminates the dark parts of my heart I couldn't see before.  In these days I can see -- with appalling clarity -- my pride, my selfishness, my resistance to direction from others, my reluctance to open my hands and lay what I treasure before God's throne, and my tendency to be defensive.  God's light, coming through the cracks of my broken life, pronounces sin for what it is -- not as the harmless idiosyncrasies I sometimes like to think of them as.

I like the first two lines of Cohen's verse as well: "Ring the bells that still can ring/ Forget your perfect offering."  I am not perfect, and I cannot offer God a perfect me.  As much as I want to honor Him in my grief and in how I respond to the tragedy in our lives, I know I cannot do it perfectly.  I fall short all the time.  But that doesn't mean I shouldn't try or that I shouldn't proclaim my faith in Him.  It doesn't mean I shouldn't blog until I have the answers and until I can state my faith flawlessly or represent Him with perfect accuracy.  I am so far from the woman I want to be, but I can still ring the bells for God.  I can still shout out my love for Christ and praise Him with what I am and where I am.  I'm not the me I want to be, but I can offer God who I am right now.  He will meet me where I am, and in the cracks of my heart, He will shine His perfect light and begin to change me into that woman I wish I was.

So though I have fleeting moments when I'm tempted to wish for an unblemished and easy life, I know there is no such thing.  And I know without the hardships and heartbreaks of my life, I would not be able to see, by contrast, the amazing brilliance of God's perfect light.  In my sorrow and pain, I can still "ring the bells that still can ring."  Losing Samuel has in no way squelched my love for or trust in God.  It's done the exact opposite, in fact.  I can declare God's truth, love, and faithfulness with this broken heart of mine.  And though I am not perfect, I can offer who I am.  In my imperfections, and in the imperfections of the world around me, God's light can radiate and offer real hope and real joy and real peace.   So, I will:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."