On a Personal Note

I just can’t let another day go by without commenting on the Haitian earthquake. Like everyone else I’ve been sitting in my cozy computer chair watching the scenes of devastation over in Haiti. People digging by hand through rubble. People lying in the street. Doctors doing major surgery in parking lots. Children searching for parents. Parents searching for children. It’s breaking my heart.

But through it all I see people with their heads bowed in prayer. Groups of believers lifting their voices to the heavens. This morning I watched as a camera crew recorded the unbelievable rescue of a woman buried for six days. Her husband never gave up on the belief that his wife was alive. He had been digging by hand until he heard her voice. Then crews came. Three hours of painstaking digging and cutting through cables and beams and the woman was pulled relatively unscathed from the collapsed bank (she had three broken fingers). When the reporter asked if she thought she would live, she simply looked at him and said “why wouldn’t I?” then she began singing.

I don’t often talk about my personal beliefs, but in the face of catastrophe the Haitian people have turned to their faith for the amazing strength and resiliency to get up each morning and keep going. Their priests celebrated mass on Sunday and people attended. With nothing … no home, no furniture and barely enough water to sustain themselves, they still attended services. It puts me to shame.

There isn’t much I can do for these people except send money to the Red Cross and lift up my prayers for them. But watching them pull together in the face of such devastation has made me truly be thankful for all I have around me. Make sure you hold your babies tight tonight and tell the ones you love how much they mean to you. We just never know when it will all be taken away.