The other day,without warning ,I was looking at a picture on the internet of a man who was injured at the Boston Marathon.
He had been standing with the crowd, he looked into the eyes of a terrorist ,saw him put the backpack down and a few minutes later, had no flesh anywhere on his lower left leg.All that you could see in the picture taken immediately after the bomb blast was bone and no foot.He has since had both legs removed from the knee down.
On a bright spring day, with the beloved muddy Charles River flowing, and some slight green in the trees, the distance runners of Boston had only one worry;would they finish ?The patient bystanders had only one thought, will I see my family member as they go by? I have stood along a race route looking for a family member and it is exciting and the most wholesome of ways to spend a morning.You see the health,the courage of the runners,their fitness ,and being there feels like an honor.
I cannot imagine the pain of this bystander as he struggles to face life without wholeness.What he will go through in the next few months,I will not try to imagine.I haven't the courage.
"This is My beloved."
In another hospital is a nineteen year old who, by all accounts, tried to shoot himself and is in critical condition with a long stretch of treatment ahead of him ,if he survives.He will probably never speak as it seems the bullet took his vocal chords.He is nineteen.His future will include prison for the rest of his life.I cannot imagine how he will feel when he wakes up from the drugs that course through his body.
"This is My beloved."
To understand that both are His beloveds brings me great peace.
4 comments:
Lovely writing. Not sure I get the last line though...the fave
you, my friend are very much His beloved to remind us of this most sacred of truths! We are ALL His creatures of equal favor.
You have echoed my laments well. On the one hand I empathize with those innocents who have permanently lost face or function because of the blast. On the other, a gentle,confused young man lies terribly injured in souls and body, alone in a hospital. He has seen war atrocities in his own country, had to adapt to a foreign culture and new language, and been duped by a hate-based group. I feel his confusion and fear as he lay wounded under the tarp in that boat. (I was a proud American when they didn't just 'blow him away'. Perhaps we can still be a gentle, peace-loving nation.)
The changes in his life will challenge any chance to regain his childish simple faith in God and love of neighbor. He will be tormented and hated in prison by other 'criminals'. and perhaps inflicted with far worse indignities or emotional wounds.
How has this gentle boy--as we as a world--come to such a point in history?
By failure to heed Our Heavenly Father's teachings?
Americans are just as guilty, I feel. We've done our share of bombing, mining, and drone warfare. No one has trusted God to provide and just turned the other cheek when offended.
Now the world is deep in a cycle of hate and retribution.
Yet God in Hi s unfailing love still holds out His promise:
"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from Heaven and forgive their sins andheal their land."
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God." (Matthew 5:9)
Oh Lord, give us the courage to turn and humble ourselves and seek your face; to forgive others as you have forgiven us.
Wonderful thoughts and quotes...thank you!!
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