A Letter to My Friends in Texas
I’ve started and stopped this so many times. There’s no real way to write through a sorrow like this. I keep thinking of you, my friends, the families I’ve known for years — having grown up in Texas — and the girls and boys who grew up alongside my own, and now their own sons and daughters. Camp Mystic is part of so many of our stories. It’s a place stitched into generations of summer and song. And now, there is such heartbreak, with so many who are grieving.
Among the lives affected by the Hill Country flooding was a precious family whose parents are close to my heart. They lost their son and daughter-in-law, and as of the most recent update, their two grandsons remain missing. Their granddaughter, who was at another camp, was unharmed. I am holding them and their sweet granddaughter close in my heart and asking God to surround them with comfort and strength.
This sorrow belongs to many, and each name matters. Some of you have lost family—children, grandchildren, neighbors. Some of you are embracing with love those who were rescued, and some of us are a few steps removed, but feeling the ache all the same.
I don’t have answers, but I think that when tragedy floods through a community, we’re called to gently stand with one another with the kind of kindness that doesn’t need to fix anything, but just carry the corner of the weight for a little while.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” —Psalm 34:18
The Lord bends low when we’re hurting. He draws near to us in the silence and grieves with us. Jesus himself wept at the tomb of a friend.
I believe that God climbs into the ache with us, and I believe that when we bring soup, or listen without needing anything in return, or say quietly, “I haven’t forgotten”—we are following in the footsteps of Jesus.
I don’t know what you’re carrying today. Maybe it’s sorrow, or the heaviness of having been spared when others were lost, or maybe you have a feeling of helplessness, wanting to do something that will really matter. Your love matters, even if all you can do is cry, or pray, or just be there for those who are grieving, and say, “I don’t know what to say.”
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” —Galatians 6:2
There is holy ground in grief, and God meets us there. Grief strips everything away. It makes us raw. It removes our ability to posture or to manage the moment. In that bare place, where all we can do is feel and breathe and cry, the Lord is near. Our God, who is full of mercy and compassion, is faithful to be near. He will make a way where there seems to be no way.
There’s something about sorrow that opens us to the deeper things like love, compassion, longing, and eternity. We grieve because we have loved. God kneels beside us in the wreckage and gathers us up like children, pulling us into his love, and he stays. Sometimes we feel him in the hush after we’ve run out of words.
Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite praise songs. I want to sing it continuously as a saturation of prayer in the days to come. If you want, please join me in whatever song speaks to your heart.
Here is a link to hear and sing with mine:
God will make a way
Where there seems to be no way
He works in ways we cannot see
He will make a way for me
He will be my guide
Hold me closely to His side
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way,
He will make a way
By a roadway in the wilderness
He’ll lead me
Rivers in the desert will I see
Heaven and earth will fade
But His Word will still remain
He will do something new today
God promises that somehow, even in all this that has happened, in all the loss, we aren’t alone. He will make a way, where there seems to be no way.
A Prayer
Lord, for every family aching with loss, for every child who trembles when the rain begins again, for every heart that cannot yet form words—be near. Bend low and gather them into your arms. Let your presence be felt in the quiet moments, in the voices of friends, in the silence and the sorrow. Remind us that you aren’t a distant God. You weep with us, stay with us when the floodwaters rise, and never leave. Give us courage to love each other well, to be there with gentleness, and to bear one another’s burdens with all the love we can give. We know you’ll be near and you’ll make a way, where there seems to be no way.
Amen
