“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:…a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance…” Ecclesiates 3: 1, 4

This passage has been circling my thoughts over the last few months. I have always considered myself a sympathetic person. My emotions can be easily swayed by the emotions of others. Yet, I tend to be able to let things go and for lack of a better term, move on and focus on joys. I would be lying if I said I didn’t just choose not to think about the tough things. While dwelling on tragedy and darkness is not something I want to do, nor something we ought to do, pushing it out of my thoughts altogether is most definitely not what Jesus would want me to do. There must be a balance. Over the last several months the phrase “feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders” has really struck a chord with me. I am in a season of mourning. Mourning for the state of our world. Nothing that has happened this past year is really any worse or different than what has always happened. There is darkness, really really black darkness. I guess I am just feeling said darkness a bit more internally than I normally do. I have not lost hope, there is always hope. Jesus had all the hope in the world before he brought Lazarus back, yet the scriptures tell us that he wept with his friends. He felt their pain and was truly sorry that these tragedies plague our world. I find myself crying in bed on occasion just thinking about certain situations. The tragedies from the recent Sevier County fires, the Syrian children and families who are being bombed, the families suffering from their babies dying on that bus crash in Chattanooga, all the children in foster care, sex trafficking, homelessness, those trapped in addiction, close loved ones in turmoil, the list goes on and on.

Like I said before, I still have hope, but why am I so weighed down? This is the question I have been pondering in my prayers. Right now, the answer to that question is summed up in the following passage:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard. Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.” ~Isaiah 58: 6-9

God is calling me to more action. For this, I am grateful. I am in a time of mourning, and it doesn’t feel good, but if this time of mourning causes me to move, then I will gladly bear it. I have decided to create a facebook group called “Be the Light.” See page here. The idea behind it is basically to have a hub where anyone from the community that is part of the group can post a service project they are involved in or want to be involved in. Others in the group can choose to come alongside and help in any means necessary. Through physical means, financial means, and/or spiritual means. There are so many ways to get out and help. Sometimes, our biggest hindrance is not knowing where to start and how to help. My hope is that with this group I along with others will be made aware of more opportunities to serve, and then, in turn, take action. I say this to either encourage those in my community to become part of this group or for those outside of East TN reading this blog, maybe you can create your own group. I am tired of darkness, but it isn’t going anywhere right now. So for the time being, I want to be the light, don’t you?