I encounter many people with no hope beyond the grief of their lives. When soldiers come to me as their chaplain, I ask them, “Why do you care?” They’re astonished by that question. “What do you mean, ‘Why do I care?’ Who wouldn’t care about something like this?”

Then I clarify. Most religions (including atheism and agnosticism) say that tragedies and suffering are either part of the natural order or are merely illusions. Yet here you are weeping over the death of your mother, as if she meant something to you. It’s as if suffering and death are things at which we should recoil. The next question is this: “Why do you care about brokenness unless you realize this isn’t the way things are supposed to be?”

There is truth in our tears, the result of aching hearts in a fallen world—both crying out before the brokenness and longing for the healing. Something is wrong, and we know it because God made us with eternity written in our hearts. Our brokenness drives us to the cross where our Savior was broken to make us whole again.