Devastation

My mom called me this morning with the news regarding Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman. For those who haven't heard, his five-year-old daughter Maria was killed Wednesday evening. She was struck in their driveway by an SUV driven by her teenage brother. You can read an article about this tragedy here.

This affects me on two levels. The first reaction is to the utter, unimaginable devastation that family is feeling for not only the loss of a child, but the guilt of the sibling. His life will never be the same. And to lose a beautiful daughter. Well, lets say I don't even want to comprehend that pain. My fervent prayers are with them today. May the Lord somehow comfort them. I just can't imagine.

The second level that affects me is the glut of pain we are experiencing in this world. I feel so much pain for the Chapman's loss.... but what about the 50,000+ people in China feeling that same excruciating pain? or the tens of thousands in Myanmar? It's easy to look at the horribly large numbers of dead in other countries, and withdraw emotionally from it. If we let each of those losses bring us so much pain, how could we function?

But I believe God feels each of those individual losses, even more than we feel for a loss within our own family. I cannot imagine God letting this mess go on much longer. He's got to be coming back soon. These tragedies have galvanized me--I have to do what I can to help Him come as soon as possible. Whatever the sacrifice, this pain and suffering has got to stop. Please, Lord, come quickly.