Life Down the Rutted Red Road

The log had termite holes in it. But I sat on it anyway, hoping that the termites chose not to return for a few minutes.  From that angle all I could see were fields growing our food, a cloud streaked sky, birds playing in a tree. The insect chatter drowned out the distant generator drone.

It was peaceful.

It was beautiful.

And yet, in a building only 100 metres away, I had held three dying or dead babies over the previous 48 hours. I had explained to their mothers that there was nothing more we could do. I had removed medical paraphernalia from their bodies and wrapped them in their cloths so the families could take them home to bury them.

And beauty seemed far away.

Brokenness reigned.

In this country there is so much pain and loss and hurt and hate and frustration and evil and sickness and death. Sometimes it makes me want to shake someone, or, if I truly be honest, shake my fist at God. At other times in seems easier to hide in some other fantasy world where war does not reign, where babies do not die, where I or another author can control the world and create that happy ending. And then there are the days I just want to give up: “If you want to destroy yourselves, go ahead…”

Yet, as I sat on that termite eaten log I thought about this beauty and this brokenness. And I realised how many times I had been sucked into the brokenness and the never-ending “battle” against it that I had not paused to look at beauty. Is it not just a frivolous thing anyway, this beauty? What are sunsets,  birds swooping in the sky and wild-flowers in the grass compared to saving lives?

But, if I do not see the beauty, the brokenness wins. It becomes the only story of this place, of this country, of this world. But the Creator, when he banished Adam and Eve from the Garden, did not banish all beauty from the world. Instead he allowed it to co-exist. Allowed it to be slivers of his glory. To proclaim that this brokenness is not the end story. It is not the total picture.

One day beauty – and all that is good and true and wonderful  – will win. It will be the story.

And so today and tomorrow and next tomorrow, between the dramas and the pain and the babies dying and the heartache of this place, I will try and search for beauty. To open my eyes to those slivers of glory. To pause to gaze at a sunrise. To sit on a termite eaten log and choose to delight.