There’s a McDonalds I come to on Tuesday nights. I spend $1.08 and get a drink, sometimes tea, sometimes Coke. Sometimes I just get water. Once I ordered nothing at all. I sit here for 75 minutes while the girls are nearby attending choir. There is free wifi here and lots of fodder for the people are broken file. Last week I watched four teenagers eat burgers while two of them pawed each other the entire time and I wondered if they had parents or if their parents cared or if I would one day be foster parenting their not-yet-baby. Tonight there is a couple nearby. She’s crying. He’s yelling. Their toddler baby is wandering close by and their kindergarten age boy is climbing on the play place. I hear DUI and I hear you don’t care and I hear pain. A lot of pain.
On Sunday night Maddie and I stopped at another McDonalds on the turnpike. The options between Oklahoma City and Tulsa are pretty limited when you need gasoline and are hungry. We went in and as we were finishing up we saw a 40-something cowboy come in with a 10-something boy. The man hugged the boy. He hugged him again and again. And the boy was crying. And the boy walked across the restaurant towards the other door where his mother was waiting for him. And he held out his hand to his dad and waved one more time. And the dad held back tears and waved back and then turned around and walked out the door he came in.
And I broke down in tears right there in the McDonalds. Much like I’m about to do right now. Because there is so much that is dark and broken in this world I can hardly breathe.
I went to Owasso this weekend to file some will and trust parents at the county courthouse for my parents. It was the final step in what turned into six month process of me trying to help them get their legal lives in order. I mediated some tension between my dad and the hospice nurse who came out for the first time. Having hospice step into the story was not an easy move for my parents. It is a necessary one, but necessary does not equal easy. And I watched my mom. And it was hard.
And I’ve been so quiet about the boys lately because they have grown right into my heart and their story is my story and when their story takes a turn next month it’s going to rip a hole right through me.
And there is so much that is dark and broken in this world I can barely breathe.
I can’t pray. I can’t talk. I can’t think. I can only cry.
And I have to hope that God hears my tears and translates them into the prayer I mean them to be.
Because there is just so much that is dark and broken in this world I can hardly breathe.
Half-Pint House 
I’m there. Coming out of it a little. But I’m there. I can pray right now. So I will pray for you.
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Weeping with you. Praying for you. Praying especially that you may know the nearness of the One who is near to the brokenhearted.
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Wow…. I just went to the movie “Osage County” with Meryl Streep last week. It is billed as an hilarious movie about a disfunctional family. It is filled with enough 4 letter words to literally turn the movie theater blue, but all I could see was the brokenness of the families that had been passed down, and passed down. So sad, I cried through half the movie. And then walking out one of women behind us said, “That really struck too close to home.” I was hoping people didn’t really live and behave like that. The crazy thing was there were people laughing through the movie. I’m still praying, asking God for his Kingdom to come here on earth as it is in heaven. To help us each show compassion and God’s love to those around us. I don’t even know how to really express what I’m feeling except to know God knows and cares. Also asking him to use that movie to show others how broken we are and how we need Him. Praying for you and your family….
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Romans 8:26
English Standard Version (ESV)
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
Thank you for the work you do and the love you give. Prayers for you, your family, your boys.
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Crying with you. Praying. So sorry.
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Oh, Megan. Sending hugs and prayers. That dark place is sad and lonely, and I send all good thoughts.
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Praying with you, Megan.
God knows & hears.
I can’t imagine your pain, but I am in Owasso, and if you need any help on this end, I’d be more than happy to help.
Love & prayers!
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There IS so much that is dark and broken in this world, but there is also the Light of the World who restores, over and over and over, even when we cannot see it in our humanness. Lamentations 3:22-24,32-33 ” because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him…Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.” Oh, how much he loves you, and your parents and the boys you are parenting and all the other broken people in our broken world. Praying for peace that surpasses understanding, Megan, and grieving with you tonight.
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Don’t feel bad that you can’t pray. God knows the prayers in your heart that only come out as tears. This is the time for other people to pray for you. Go on and cry, we will pray.
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