I don’t know about you but I’m struggling right now. Most of you know I lost my mom in December and admittedly I’m still learning to live with my grief (NOT get over it…that’s not how grief works). My struggle also comes from just feeling disconnected with everything around me. It’s like life continues to go on, people expect things from me, but I’m struggling to keep up with their expectations. It doesn’t help that my brain is mush. I’m forgetful and distracted, I guess this is all goes with the territory.

It also doesn’t help that our country is a shit show. The attempted coup that we all just witnessed on Wednesday coupled with people already starting to defend those involved. There’s also the continued worry because of grumbles of additional attempts later this month.

I think this all only adds to my own anxiety and depression. I have hope that things will change with the leadership but there’s just so much division. There’s also so much ignorance in people just refusing to think, believing everything they see or read or saying something is fake news just because it doesn’t mesh with their point of view. Repeating a lie over and over doesn’t make it truth and denying a truth over and over doesn’t make it a lie.

My question is how do we fix it? It used to be we’d say just pray more and hope that people come back to God, but honestly it feels like God got us into this. Maybe not God directly, but people who claim faith but carry anger and hate in their hearts. It’s like they only worship the angry and judgmental God of the Old Testament and pay no mind to Jesus. Yes, he turned over tables in the temple but not the government buildings.

Maybe this is what we need, to turn over the tables in our churches. To remove the idols we’ve created and replace them with actual obedience to Jesus. Scratch that, obedience is another one of those words. We need to replace our idolatry with love for Jesus. We need to listen to him and be more like him. Jesus never commanded worship or even obedience, he simply said “follow me”.

I guess I’m just struggling with hope right now. It just feels so dark. I tend to feed off of the emotions of others. Maybe my own grief coupled with what I’m feeling from the world right now is just overwhelming.

I spoke at my mom’s service, I knew she’d want me to. One of the things that I said was that “grief is love with nowhere to go.” I then went on to encourage those in attendance to channel that grief, that love, to those who still need it.

This sounds like a good place for us to start if we’re feeling overwhelmed. Just do good wherever you are. Help others, speak the words of Jesus and just try not to be an asshole. The world has plenty of those already.