A small forge in a church parking lot may seem like an unusual place to heal wounded hearts, but that’s what happened at an event our congregation hosted. We were one of the stops on a nationwide book tour for Beating Guns: Hope for People Who Are Weary of Violence by Shane Claiborne and Mike Martin.
After a particularly violent weekend in Chicago, we were ready for a glimmer of hope. Around the forge, we watched a gun being melted down and hammered into a gardening tool, echoing the words of the prophet Isaiah: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). Everyone there who’d been personally affected by gun violence was invited to name the loved ones they’d lost and take a first swing of the hammer. We were given slips of paper and asked to write down the hostilities in our hearts. These, too, went into the forge.
As evening settled into night, we prayed, sang, and rejoiced in a God who heals our wounded hearts.
This message is excerpted from “Lessons from the forge” by Laura Brix Newbury in the October 2019 Gather magazine.
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