Missing Ingredient

I’m broken-hearted tonite.

While I’m an introvert, I work, like most of us, with people. By that I mean I work with them as souls and spirits, not just as bio-machines that are little more than extensions of the copier or workstation. So … I get to know who they are in the core of their being. I get glimpses of their central convictions and the things that offer them hope. I get to share a little bit in their burdens and their disappointments. I also get to see, sometimes, the demons that plague them and the longings of their heart and the dreams that put wings on their feet. It is a curse. It is a blessing.

For three years I have invested in a very gifted someone who has been lingering on the edge of hope. This has included prayers and pleadings and conversations and challenges and encouragements. Today I learned that it has produced no hopeful fruit. That someone walked away and proclaimed it all to be meaningless.

My broken-heartedness does not come from my time and effort being wasted, because I don’t believe it was a waste. It doesn’t come from the dissatisfaction of no return on investment. It comes from watching someone turn away from light and peace and promise and hope, and choose a path filled with quiet, appealing, smiling deceit and progressive blindness.

This can only lead to being lost in the wilderness. And it breaks my heart.