By comparison, when our lives are rocked and the earth sways and things are changed forever, most of the time not many people are aware. There's no number others can text to send you relief, no humanitarian concern beyond your immediate circle of family and friends. Yet the devastation can be just as severe when life as we knew it suddenly ceases to exist and the landscape is changed forever. Even as I'm typing this, I'm mindful of those who will always have an empty chair at the table where a child should be sitting. Or an empty place in the bed reminding others of broken promises and dreams.
At church a couple of weeks ago, Louie spoke about us carrying the name of Jesus into our world - wherever we find ourselves. It was a great message and you can click here if you'd like to hear it. He talked briefly about how each of us has different languages that are unique to our experiences that only we can speak as we live out our days on this earth.
As I was listening to this somewhat minor point of his talk, God decided it was time for it to be underlined in my own life. In looking back over the last five years of life, I realized that our family has learned several new languages. We can now speak "divorcese", "cityese", "move awayese", "travelese", "broken engagmentese", and "economic lossese" to name a few. I've mostly seen the acquistion of these new languages as something God "did" to me. But as He gently gave me a bigger picture, I realized that each new language has been needed to talk to both old and new friends about the only One who can make sense out of the madness we call life. And it seems that the harder life is, the more languages we get to learn. There is a bigger Story being written and it's not centered around me. I've been invited to be part of it if I will choose to be, but it will go on whether I participate or not.
It feels almost frivolous to tell you that I'm leaving shortly to head to Orlando with Joey for a few days. He has some vacation time and wanted to catch a couple of Braves Spring Training games, see the girl cousin, and go to a couple of the Disney parks. He asked me to go with him and well, you can't let a nephew down now, can you?? It's very thoughtful of the weather to be warming up for us too - we'll be hanging out in almost 80 degrees sunshiny days. It's still hard for me to mentally leave town with my mom living her own new normal of which I'm very much a part of. But my sweet hubby is on call and life is in more of a routine, so I'm hoping for some R&R along with the tourist mode we'll be in.
By the way, if you would like a tangible way to help with relief efforts in Japan, you can text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation to help those affected by the earthquake in Japan and tsunami throughout the Pacific.
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