Preparation

Today is prep day in every way! As I sit in the office my mind is racing with the "to-do" list and things to pack and ensuring family members have all of the info they may need.... and then I look up at the TV screen and see the devastation that has happened in Haiti. I hear the Prime Minister say hundreds of thousands of people may have died. The gravity and pain of this reality is so sobering. I stop thinking about myself and start praying for the missing, the injured and the devastated families. There are destructive things like war that we can work to avoid but something like this earthquake is out of our control, devastaion happens whether we instigate it or not. So in that reality how do we operate? It is in this time of utter desperation and devastation that we can reach out to our neighbor and offer support that can transform their future. Where do I fit in? As I prepare to enter the Mid East, a world different than I have ever known, how do I prepare my heart for the people and the needs?

Thanks to my dear friend, the following quote speaks so clearly to my heart and hope in career and ministry work. "More and more of us are realizing something that our best theologians have been saying for quite a while: Jesus' message is not actually about escaping this troubled world for heaven's blissful shores, as is popularly assumed, but instead it is about God's will being done on this troubled earth as it is in heaven. So people interested in being a new kind of Christian will inevitabley begin to care more and more about this world, an they'll want to understand its most significant problems, and they'll want to find out how they can fit in with God's dreams actually coming true down here more often." - Everything Must Change by Brian McLaren. Living out the love of Jesus is not working to avoid pain and trouble but experiencing peace and giving love in the midst of it and this happens in the context of passionate relationships that bridge uncomfortable divides at times.