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Ditto

I have been dreaming about Makiah this week.  I keep her close to me wherever we go.  I look at her pretty little hands and hold them tight. I tell her to stay right beside Mommy.  In some dreams the ominous tornadoes are coming... swirling towards us with rage.  I cover her up, and we hunker down together until they have past.   But the rumbling sky seems to send them in endless waves.  Even when there are no tornadoes and we are just living life, it is never safe.  No matter what I do or how closely I hold her, she inevitably vanishes.  Occasionally, I wake up before she disappears.  I suppose this is merciful, but maybe not.  The dream and the reality are the same. 

We are so quick to tell people that things will be okay.  One day in heaven they will be, but I will forever use those words cautiously here on this earth.  Do we really know that or is it easier to say things will be fine rather than spend the emotional energy to enter into their pain if things are not?  Do we just as readily mourn with those who are weeping and struggling?  Are we unable to "see" the pain of others until we ourselves experience great pain as well?  I am guilty as charged.  It takes great courage to ask a hurting person about their wounds (of course I mean only in the context of well established relationships).  It takes time and energy to cry with them.   Mostly it requires us to be vulnerable with our own emotions and questions.  If we don't shut them off, the pain of others will peel back the busy, hard layers of our own feelings.  The inability to answer their deep questions... or our own... will surface.  There in rawness is where we are utterly human and frail.  That is the place where we "mourn with those who mourn."  That takes courage.

There is more I thought to say about this, but then I read my cousin's blog.  I decided I could not write the rest as well as she did.  The only word I could think of was "Ditto."  As I type, precious Sararjoy Makiah, who left China to join her new family three weeks ago, is undergoing an eight hour open heart surgery.  We love.  We pray. We hope.

 http://lettersforlydia.blogspot.com/2011/02/ready.html 

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