An unimaginable tragedy crashed into my family recently and I watched from afar as the brokenness and pain drew my loved ones away from their differences and towards each other in a mutual search for some way, any way forward. All the struggles and difficulties in my life were suddenly white washed and insignificant as the horrific news reached me, and the truth of what’s important and real came so painfully into focus. I looked on in awe as my family members were lovingly embraced in a monumental way by, of all things, their church. They came together and stood taller because they were united. The beauty and strength I witnessed in that, was so large and so vivid that I immediately recognized its absence in my life, and it’s opened up something in me that I put aside long ago.