January 19, 2010

I think its due time that I thank God that I have never been in any natural disasters. We all know about the intense earthquake that recently hit Haiti, and the destruction that followed in its path. Honestly, that's the only thing that's on the news. Tom and I were listening to NPR earlier, and a woman was talking about how she lost her older brother and her home to the earthquake. She didn't know if her parents were alive because she couldn't afford a bus ticket to their village.

I grew up in an area where the most major natural disasters were from blizzards (rare) and floods (even rarer). There was an occassional tornado, but they never seemed that immenent to our area. I've seen the destruction caused by an F4 (possibly F5, but I can't remember) tornado within days of it happening. My uncle and his family were lucky enough not to have anything major happen to their home, but the tornado literally was directly across the street from them. I can't imagine what the impact of being in a natural disaster really is.

Haiti seems to have gotten a doubly whammy. Not only is Haiti one of, if not the, poorest country on this hemisphere, but everything they did have as gone thanks to this earthquake. God has made it my good fortune to have been kept safe from any natural disasters as well let me live a comfortable life with my family. We may not be wealthy, but thanks to Tom's job security, I know we have a roof over our head, food in our bellies the reliability of the military if something should fall on us.

God has blessed us in this way for his own reasons, and all I can say is "thank you."

"The least movement is of importance to all nature. The entire ocean is affected by a pebble." -- Blaise Pascal

Good night.