Thoughts on the tsunami
At first, I thought that I wouldn’t bring up the topic of the tsunami on my blog. You see, I had visions of my blog as a place of fun and cheerfulness. But I also have visions of my blog as a place where I am honest with myself and true to my feelings.
Once the church service started today, I let myself really begin to dwell on the magnitude of this disaster… and I began to envision what it would be like to lose my husband, or my parents, or friends… or what it would be like to not even know if they were okay or not… and I teared up. And I am getting teary and choked up currently as I write this and think about it more.
Part of the reason I ended up dwelling about this at church so much, is because our senior pastor was supposed to get the day off and our associate pastor was scheduled to lead the service and give the sermon. Well, you know the saying about the best laid plans, right? Our associate pastor ended up coming down with a 24 hour flu, so she couldn’t give the sermon, as expected. That left our senior pastor with a few hours to select scripture readings and a sermon. He told us that since the tsunami had been on his mind so much this week, he decided to focus his sermon on it and share some of his reflections and thoughts.
One of the scripture readings really struck me.
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
The Lord Almighty is with us
(from Psalm 46, verses 1-3 and part of verse 7)
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.