Thankfully

October 18 - October 24, 2009

This has been a hard week for me emotionally. To say I've ridden the emotional roller-coaster would be an understatement of ginormous proportion. In ruminating on some of the current events of the past week, both in my personal life and the lives of people I dearly love, as well as some of the headline news items, I’ve been reminded, once again, how very precious life is, and how often we take life, and the lives of people we love, for granted. Life doesn’t come to us wrapped in pretty paper or tied with a bow, but it is still a gift.

The tragedy of this past week where the body of a 7 year-old little girl was found in a landfill in Georgia nearly broke my heart. The fact that there were 150 registered sex offenders living within a 5 mile radius of where this child walked home from school each day is a stunning, mind-boggling statistic and testimony that this is NOT the world I grew up in as a kid. We’re NOT in Kansas anymore! There weren’t any wicked people in Kansas, if you remember the story of The Wizard of Oz. I saw the mother of that 7 year-old girl on a news clip. As any mother would, she hopes that the murderer is caught and that he gets the death penalty. If anyone is deserving of the death penalty, it is someone who sees children merely as prey...something to be ravaged and thrown away as refuse. Thank you, Rowe v. Wade!!! When we go so far as to devalue life, even a life that hasn’t been born yet, why should we then be surprised that evil predators would prey on children? It is incomprehensible to me that most people do not see the correlation of violent crimes enacted against children as a result of our own disregard of life.

Another tragedy this week where there has been an arrest of a 15 year-old in the murder of the 9 year-old girl whose body was found 2 days after she was reported as missing. I want to cry when I hear news stories like this.

Then, on Friday night, October 23, a few teenagers and their friends had gone to Taco Bell at the drive-thru. A white man approaches them; the lower portion of his face is wrapped up and he’s holding a gun. He asks them first if they have any drugs. When the kids answered ‘’No,’’ he then demands their wallets (of the two older boys). All together they had less than $80. The man then tells them, ‘’Let this be a lesson to you.’’ I get that cold, clammy feeling all over my skin and my stomach churns every time I think about the ‘’What If’s’’ that could have happened. Then I am flooded with thankfulness that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been! I am thankful that they are okay, even though they were scared. I hope this will be a lesson that they learn in being wary, more watchful of the people around them; to be more careful. Though how you can be ‘’more’’ careful at a drive-thru, I cannot fathom.

It’s ironic that the people we love the most are the ones we often take for granted. I know there’s a concept of ‘’tough’’ love, but there is just something wrong when we are more considerate, kind, gentle, and loving to people we don’t know than those we love more than life itself. It’s easier to apologize to people you don’t know than to apologize to someone we know we wronged. We tend to give complete strangers the benefit of the doubt, but oh, no....not those whom we know love us. We think we can treat them anyway we choose and we know they’ll take it because we have that bond of relationship. Why can’t we see that those we hold to such high standards are people too? Our family, friends, and loved ones are people who aren’t perfect; people who make mistakes; people who have emotions and react just like we do sometimes? 

God doesn't give you the people you want...He gives you the people you NEED...to help you, to hurt you, to leave you, to love you and to make you into the person you were meant to be. Although I can’t wrap my finite mind around the fact that even the bad things that happen in our lives are allowed by an infinite God to draw us closer to Him. There has to be some purpose to it all; it’s not just a random act of whimsy.

‘’You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world but a world lives in you.’’ ~Frederick Buechner “The Telling Truth”

I want to live every minute with the people I love the most; I want to cherish even the mundane things as priceless treasures, knowing that each person is truly unique, one-of-a-kind and that their input in the weft and weave of the fabric of my life adds a brighter touch of color here and there; a note of harmony in this Song of Life; a word of encouragement and a strength to lean on when I am weary of all life hurls my way. When I’m gone, I want those whom I love to reflect on my life and see that I’ve left footprints in the sands of time for them to follow on their own personal journey to God. Hopefully, they will see that, although I haven’t told them how to live their lives, and they've to made their own mistakes (as we all do), that I did point them in the right direction. What more can any one ask? Wouldn’t that be my greatest achievement...my crowning glory?

Profoundly thankful for God’s protection this weekend, and for loved ones, both far and near,

~Starla