Earthquake puts daily worries into perspective
Here is what has become inconsequential in a hurry. Because it all comes down to perspective. I missed a chance for our favorite campsite at Priest Lake. Booking six months ahead, and being the first online reservation when the site opens — when who knows how many others are trying — is a precarious deal. My heart fires up like a jetliner taking off.
The grandgirls returned to Alaska a few days ago. It was one empty loft when I came home. I admit to a few memory tears. The 19-year-old — on the spectrum — dawdled getting ready for the airport. I “reminded” her multiple times. She told me in her mind she was thinking about doing it, and therefore she'd done it. I said her eggs were still on her plate, so there was the evidence that she hadn't.
Then we nearly had a meltdown when she became frustrated that her brain has its own gears. All while I'm trying to keep it calm so we're out the door on time. Planes don't generally wait for you to eat breakfast.
I ordered for pick-up more of my traditional See's chocolate-covered marshmallow valentine hearts — a box of 15 — that I convinced myself I would share. I planned to get them in a few days in Spokane.
We watched the Gonzaga basketball game the other night — certain the Zags had a decent lead. Then they lost. Someone the next day said, “I was doing all right till about 10 o'clock last night.” The end of overtime.
None of this seems important when I opened my news feed this morning and saw the Turkey-Syria earthquake has killed over 7,000 people. Thousands more are injured. Medical facilities are inadequate. Temperatures are freezing. Shelters have collapsed. People need food and water. They need their loved ones pulled from the rubble.
Who cares about camping, about making a plane on time, about chocolates, about a sports team winning — when you see the photos coming out of the Middle East. A man sits in the ruins of his home, holding the hand of his teen daughter, who died in her bed. Four little shapes lie covered in a row — children from one family gone. A newborn baby is found alive, umbilical cord still attached to its mother — the only survivor in its family. Another man — outside the country — reports his brother had only two blankets to keep seven warm.
The destruction looks impossible to clean up. All in a couple of minutes of shaking. The ground seems so solid underfoot — but the earth is just a four-layered ball suspended in space. It is not indestructible.
Who has an answer? There is none. Not without God in the equation. The Bible says, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” In another passage, I read that God “has set eternity” in the human heart.
The world is gathering around Turkey and Syria. Doing what it can to relieve the suffering. The bond among people is always a light amid tragedy.
The bond I need, faced with earth's temporary status, is a knowledge of — and relationship with — a forever God who has promised “no sorrow, no tears” living to come — who has given His Son as His pledge, with an invitation to all who will turn to Him. There is still the very real grief of “now.” But there is also a whole new hope.