In the quiet of acres of open space, the dissonance in my soul was deafening. I almost covered my ears until I realized it was all mental chatter. Normally, Halloween is a sweet time in our home, but this morning had felt terribly different in light of all the events in Israel and Gaza.

I had sent my children to school in costumes; if they were lucky, they were dressing their children’s wounds. That night, my children would be laughing and counting candy; that night, they might be counting the dead. My oldest son, who participates in cross country, runs for medals to cheering crowds; their teenagers are running for their lives away from shrapnel and metal.

There, on the trail, alone with my dogs, I started crying. Had people overtaken us, they would have thought me crazy. But it was right to cry with Christ, to try to hold two emotions at once. To be present there where I was while also being moved by their present horror felt terribly uncomfortable. Yet, if it were the other way around, if my children were starving and scared, tired and traumatized, I would want people to acknowledge it and hear the dissonance while their children played peacefully as children ought.

Though I feel terribly powerless and helpless, I can at least name their reality and weep with them. I can beg God to work, to move, to be near to them. I can actively long for Christ’s Second Coming. I can anticipate with the prophet Isaiah, the day when death is swallowed up forever:

“On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people, he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, ‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that might save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation’.” (Isaiah 25: 6–9).

Until that day, the least I can do is to cry with Christ. I can bring the dissonance before his throne in dependence and desperation.

Deafening Dissonance

My children run for medals through cheers;
Their children run from metal through tears:
The dissonance is deafening.

My children play hide and seek with delight;
Their children desperately hide in fright:
The dissonance is deafening.

My children dress in costumes for fun;
They dress their children’s wounds on the run:
The dissonance is deafening.

If, somehow, it were the other way around, 
I’d want to know that you’d hear the sound,
The dissonance that’s deafening.

I hope you know that I’ll fight to hold 
Space for your pain that is barely told. 
I hear the dissonance deafening.

Half a world away, I bring you before His throne;
I pray that you would know you are not alone.
Only He can quiet dissonance deafening