Susan LaffertyChristmas approaches. Like a freight train. It’s that time of year.
Loud in commercials and sales. Glitz and glitter. Richly-colored wrapping and ribbons and bows.
Bright trees. Exquisite nativities. Christmas baking on point.
And the music. Playlists mixing winter themes and manger scenes. O Holy Night and a blue Christmas without you.
In the midst of it all? Hunger for something more.
Sun beat down on flat roofs in long Karachi summers.
Electricity failed. Lines melted. Disconnecting and falling in the street.
The interior of our home was an oven. Climbing over 100 degrees at times.
We read of people dying in Chicago one summer. Why? Fans combined with heat above a certain temperature in their apartments turned those spaces into convection ovens.
Oh. We were getting cooked.
Tomorrow. Next month. Next year.
Detailed future schedules, meticulously stored in digital calendars.
Vanish. Into thin air. Digital air.
As a corona virus disrupts. Delays. Deletes.
And thieves break in.
Whispering fear. Stealing contentment.
This confining space. A refining place. Reveals.
Makes plain where best-laid-plans put down roots.
And expectations take hold.
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city.…Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring—what your life will be!…”
James 4:14,15
