If I lived there...

I have often been homesick in my life...  and often when I have traveled, I have thought, "If I lived there..  I'd be home right now."  There is something so magical about the word, home.  I know it is something that gives a person just a bit of comfort,  no matter where they "hang their hat."  I have felt at home here in my classroom, at Mom's these past four years, in a motel room during a long, extended stay...  at the college dorm...  It is a word that signifies a place to stay and be at peace.  Sometimes home is simply where my family lives. Those we love form a kind of web of comfort and reliability for our hearts and souls in the midst of any kind of turmoil.

This morning's news of Japan's new terror has ripped into so many homes, so many lives.  "Oh, the difference a day makes," Gramma always used to say...  Yesterday the world and this little section of it was much happier as a whole.  Despite the uncertainty and the troubles they might have felt, these Japanese people were secure in something they called home.  They had families, and they had lives untouched by this Tsunami-scaled tragedy.

I always think of the news in a personal way, in the "this could be me or someone I love" scenario. Today is harder because these people are facing such incredible decisions (if they survived at all.)  I breathe a prayer of comfort to the homeless, the bereaved, and the injured.  And I pray for hope and relief to those who search for their families and maybe any sign of home.  I don't want to think about their lives today, but I owe it to the universe to contemplate and pray for mankind --- even when the thoughts are painful and scary.  May their lives find the healing from a God who is unshakable, omnipotent, and omnipresent in any time of loneliness.