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Devotional Memoir

Hope during a tsunami

The slow but certain flood of a tsunami moves across the globe today.  

I’ve watched videos from the one that marked our lives in 2004. The wave that advanced silently. Powerfully. Into Aceh. The water just kept coming. Pushing further inland. One bright, blue-skied day. 

And then, as waves do, it pulled back out to sea. Leaving devastation. Empty communities. Unimaginable loss. 

Today. The other tsunami. Changing the topic of our daily conversations. To quarantines and lockdowns. Limiting spread to flatten the curve. Shortages of medical supplies. Death counts.

And I remember the Scripture verses that gave hope to the inexperienced. In the December 2004 tsunami and the year that followed.

Aceh. Devastation as far as the eye could see. Nearly two months after the tsunami. February 2005.
Categories
Crossing Cultures Making Disciples Memoir

The other pandemic

We meet for lunch. Fellowship over Mediterranean food. Simply connecting while all around us the global spread of a virus ensues. Intensifies.

Events cancel. Borders tighten. Universities move to virtual classrooms. Our best-laid plans are disrupted. Interrupted. Changed.

We sit in sunshine and cool air. Sisters conversing about life journeys. Children. The hard and unexpected turns in the path this past year. The joy of following Him.

Empty chairs. Photo by Dewang Gupta, Unsplash.
Categories
Devotional Memoir

Standing on gravestones

The organ shrieks as we enter the sanctuary. Dissonant. Avant garde notes bouncing off ancient stone floors. Filling the arched ceilings. 

Discordant.

Disconcerting. 

Seemingly out of place with the luminous stained glass and stately wooden pews.

Arched ceilings in Sint Bavokerk, Haarlem, the Netherlands.