Pause.

I've been wanting to post some updates of what I've been working on around the house, but felt like it would be disingenuous until I lay out, at least in a small way through this post, the deeply unsettling feeling I've had these past two weeks.

I hear the news of what's going on with ISIS and the atrocities they're committing, most recently this week with James Foley.  I hear the anger and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and the injustices there.

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And in my own neighborhood, during lunch on a beautiful day, more violence.
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I am a fixer.  Obviously.  That's how I'm wired.  It's awful to live with the knowledge that these kinds of things are happening every day.  Some make the news, some don't. And I can't think of a single thing I can do about it.  I can't call down a bolt of lightning from the sky to strike the bad guy.  I can't go around beating people up.  I just don't have the arm strength.

Gary Haugen, the founder of International Justice Mission (an organization that pursues justice for trafficked people), spoke to a group a couple of years ago.  His talk laid out the problem of people being victimized for their land, money, bodies.  And his solution: us.

You.

Me.

It's hard to know what that looks like today, on a rainy day in Wisconsin where I am running the kids to and from camp and battling carpenter ants.

But I do know this: I know how the story ends.  I know of a God who will restore all things and make them new again.  But I also know that I have a part to play in this story and I want to be available for that role, whatever it may be, like Meg, or Jessica, or Muhammad.

I want to be that kind of person.  The available kind.