When God Interrupts Our Routine

1.29.26

Over the past few days, life has been interrupted in ways both ordinary and heartbreaking. Icy and dangerous road conditions forced schools to close, businesses to adjust hours or shut their doors, churches, including ours worship online, and families across Texas, and much of the country, to change plans and slow down. What we expected our days to look like suddenly shifted.

But alongside those practical disruptions, deeper interruptions emerged, ones that no amount of planning could have prevented.

Tragedy struck families and communities without warning. Two teenage girls were killed in a sledding accident. Three young children fell into a pond and could not be saved. We grieved the tragic death of Alex Pretti. All around us, a growing sense of unrest and uncertainty fills our nation. There is much angst and unsettledness within us right now, and perhaps rightly so.

In the midst of all this, my own family has also been walking through tragedy. We are still trying to come to terms with a loss that feels unbearable. The pain is deep. Our hearts are broken. Our souls feel shattered in ways words can barely hold. There are dark nights of the soul, questions without answers, and moments when all we can do is breathe and entrust ourselves to God. We ask the same question humanity has asked since the beginning of time and still asks today: Why, God?

Last Sunday’s Gospel reading from Matthew 4 met me, and perhaps many of us, right there.

Jesus begins his ministry not in a moment of calm or clarity, but in a time of disruption. John the Baptist has been arrested. Fear and uncertainty are in the air. Yet Jesus steps forward and proclaims, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.” Walking along the Sea of Galilee, Jesus calls ordinary fishermen in the middle of their work and invites them to follow.

This story reminds us that God does not wait for perfect conditions. God does not wait until grief has resolved or questions have neat answers. God shows up in the middle of real life, when routines are disrupted, when tragedy strikes, and when the world feels fragile and unfinished.

This past week, the world also paused to remember the Holocaust. I was reminded of the words of Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize laureate, Holocaust survivor, and author of Night, who once said, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.” In moments like these, when pain surrounds us and grief feels overwhelming, indifference is not an option for people of faith.

When God interrupts our routine, it is not to minimize our pain or silence our questions. It is not to rush us toward easy answers. Rather, God interrupts to reorient us toward compassion instead of indifference, presence instead of withdrawal, and love that dares to stay even when understanding eludes us.

Faith does not remove the ache. It does not erase the “why.” But it does remind us that we do not grieve alone, question alone, or walk through darkness alone.

And so, even in disrupted days and broken-hearted seasons, we continue to listen for God’s call. We continue to follow Jesus, not because the path is clear, but because love still matters, presence still heals, and God is still near.

Grace and peace, sela