Thinking of Japan

It's starts with a small tremor, then the items on the bookcase start to shake, a picture falls off the wall and the building begins to sway. My heart starts to beat faster and I hear panic in the air. People start running as furniture migrates across the floor and other pieces topple over. I panic and automatically do what I was taught to do in elementary school, duck under a table and start to count. The rumbling stops and someone grabs my hand and pulls me outside where the streets are filled with people, buildings destroyed and faint cries breaking the sudden stillness. All I can think of is where is my husband, where are my children, where are my parents, where is my family, where are my friends? Is everyone ok? I see people bleeding, people covered in debris and all I want is to know that my loved ones are ok. The earth starts to move again, little do I know that at this time, a small distance away, the ocean is sucking in its belly and about to release it's breath, spilling a massive wave over a small town. A town where a mother holds her baby and cries, an elderly lady holds the hand of her husband of who she has loved for most of her years. Not expecting it, they are suddenly ripped apart from one another by the massive force of the sea, tossed in the tide, never to be seen by each other again and never to be seen again.

Maybe it's because the first I heard of the news was that there was a tsunami alert for BC and all I could think about was what would I do if it affected my loved ones? Maybe it's because I am feeling a little more emotional this week, or maybe it's because I've been praying for God to soften my heart for those in need. Or maybe it's because the West Coast could be the victim's of the next massive natural disaster and I am scared. Whatever the reason, the earthquake, tsunami and now nuclear threat that Japan is facing has not left my mind since I first heard of it. Although I've written a brief and lame description of what could happen if I were faced with a natural disaster, I know that words cannot describe what people faced with the destruction of 9/11, the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, the effects of hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005, the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the 2010 earthquake in Chile, the recent earthquake in New Zealand and now the devastation in Japan, not to mention the continuous stories of flooding and other chaos in the world. How could I go on to face another day, knowing I may never find my family, knowing that my house was destroyed, knowing that I didn't even get the worst of it...

Pondering all this, praying for those affected and mourning for those that are hurting has put life into perspective for me these past couple of days. Why I am I here? What is my purpose? As a Christian, my mission is to love people and through that, introduce them to the love of Jesus. How many of those people washed away, crushed under buildings, mourning the loss of everything they knew and loved, feeling the deepest and darkest pangs of loneliness, dead, dead in spirit, didn't get to know the unsurpassable love of Jesus? And was it because they chose not to, or was it because the christian in their life was to afraid, to ashamed, not bold enough, to tell them that THERE IS ONE TRUE AND LOVING GOD that wants nothing more, than to spend eternity with them, His children?

I have hope. Although it would wreck me, it would devastate me, it would tear my heart in pieces to experience what anyone goes through when they experience loss to this extreme, and although it's not always easy, deep down, I have hope. Hope that comes from the faith in knowing that Jesus Christ has a plan, and that this pain, this life, is short and temporary compared to the joy that I will live in for eternity.

These disasters that seem to be occurring more frequently have really got me thinking about the end times - what if the world was to end tomorrow, I mean really end tomorrow? Am I living my life to the fullest? Am I living my life? And if I'm not, what should I be doing differently? This is where I am at in my thoughts. And I feel like I will think about this for another few days and it will start to fade. Japan will get relief, they will start to rebuild, I will go on with life the way I was and this will be just "an emotional week" where I pondered life...