Know that feeling?

That sick to the gut, head hurting, feeling?  Or maybe that “oh no, what did I do?” sick to the gut thought! Or what about that deep, ache in the heart feeling that leaves you in tears over words said, exchanged or heard.

It was that deep, heart-ache feeling that got me, as in it I felt a sound that rattled me. Though voiced by many, it was a single solitary cry, as people walked for what they believed in. Their rights, the rights of others, the rights of the living. I saw it on the faces, heard it beyond the chants, and read it on the flimsy poster board signs. The cry came at me from all sides. And I ached. Deeply.

With open admission I can say my feet have walked in those places too, albeit independently, but just as intentionally as the crowd. Numbly moving through what was believed to be the right thing to do at the encouragement of others.  It was the cry of humanity, resounding wordlessly from those surrounding a surgical table and from the one laying on it. The loudest cry coming from the smallest of those present, hidden from sight, and heard only by One.  A cry so loud it would later echo in the emptiness of grieving.

I asked a friend if she had heard the cry. And she had … overseas where the presence of a people group had drawn worldwide condemnation and angry misunderstanding. Where for the people, the fear of the unknown had been swallowed up in the fear of the moment as mindless escapes took place. Where a breathe once held gave way to hesitant relief. Only to have anxiety’s stranglehold tighten as fear of the unknown resurfaced. It was again the cry of humanity, yearning for life and release from hopelessness amid the deafening roar of war and death. The cry dressed itself as a widow, an orphan, sitting in the dirt of a foreign land. Exiled, far from all they knew, owning nothing, save the timid laughter that echoed out into the absence of a once familiar roar.

As the cry finally quieted down to a whisper,  I heard …. “and such were some of you”*. Only then did I understand what I had been given to hear.

In a middle ground place called choice, decisions were made. Viewed through the shifting lens of human perspective it became the difference between living and dying. Then  knowingly or unknowingly, allowing the decision of that choice to inherently affect all that is stepped into … today, tomorrow, forever.

Can I ask you to do something?

Don’t listen to the loudness and clamor of the collective cry, listen for and lean into the whisper.  But then again that’s up to you. After all, it’s your choice. Right?

On a journey till next time,

Ava

*1 Corinthians 6:11