So yes, they were baptized. Asher, then Silas, then Emmy. When Asher was finished, he looked up and whispered, "Now I'm a child of God!" and while I would have been prepared to argue that he was before the baptism, too, it was still the sweetest thing ever. We ate lasagna and cake and way too much Easter candy, then came home and crashed. It was all very lovely.
The next day, we recovered.
The next day, I worked. This is my last week of work, and it has been such a total disaster - in terms of completing tasks, I mean - that I feel as though this door is closing like an elevator, and if I don't get out of the way soon I'm going to get slammed by it. I'm looking forward to tying up the loose ends and turning in my paperwork for the last time.
The next day, we had tornados.
Maybe you've heard about it? 200 dead in my state. An F4 tornado went down the main drag of a college town in the middle of 5:00 traffic. Whole families killed, whole neighborhoods destroyed. To the east, north, and west of me, they are still recovering bodies.
I slept through the whole thing.
And this feels like a metaphor for my life. So many times I've been close to a disaster, never a part of it. Why them, not me? Why do I continually dodge the bullet without even knowing one existed? I don't know. Please don't tell me it was God protecting me, because the implication is that God wasn't protecting them, and I don't believe that. The rains fall on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. So why do I always happen upon the right place at the right time?
An example: one day this week I was loading kids into the car. I was fastening Silas into his car seat, with my back to the busy parking lot, when a man came running up beside me. The stroller had rolled into traffic. ROLLED INTO TRAFFIC, and I hadn't even noticed, and a stranger had caught it (and saved Emmy's life) without me ever even knowing she needed saving.
Another tornado, dodged.
So this has been my week - working (or not, as it were) for the last time, playgrounds and meltdowns, while in the towns all around me people are grieving lives and livelihood. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy.
2 comments:
The Lord is with us, indeed. Thank you, Lord, for protecting my children and grandchildren this week. I pray for those who can't say that right now. Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy.
What a profound post. I'm grateful for your safety. And I feel the same way too, about God's "protection." When my whole family recovered from H1N1 two weeks after we attended a funeral for a man who did not, everyone said "Praise the Lord!" And I felt that so much praise WAS due...and that it would also have been due had things not turned out as I prayed they would.
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