In The End

I am in shock about the earthquake in Japan a couple of days ago.


It grieves me to think that a day could suddenly be so turned upside down, but I know it happens.


It's certainly possible.


I just never imagined I would see this.... and I have been seeing photos...

(These are all from google)

 ....and  as you know, this blog IS Four Season Day.
It is inspired by things that change.. variety... but this is a little overwhelming to say the least.  

Anyhow....


Japan is having quite the catastrophe...
in fact, much ofwhat started as a normal day was turned upside down and it didn;t get beeter from there.  People have died unexpectedly, friends and family members are missing, people have no fresh water....roofs over their heads and a lot of debris, toxic in most cases, is everywhere.


I am a little bit surprised that with all the warning systems available, there seemed to be no warning about an earthquake to the people of Japan.  It just hit and caught them by surprise.

Some of the earthquake video showed people in their normal day to day lives... sitting at the computer terminals... sipping tea or coffee, when suddenly the earthquake hit...rooms were shaking... and no one had an idea how big it would be until it shook and shook, never seeming to stop.  Certainly, no one knew how the rest of their day would be from there.

Videos I watched later, after the tsunami, showed how the surging seawater washed cars and houses and planes and railroad cars adrift all over the city.  Cars were rolling in waves being washed over bridges, and people were in despair.  It was all so sobering to watch, and a reminder to value our time here on earth in this day.

A friend of mine, Rick, was in Hawaii  and he took this video of experiencing the small tsunami that hit there after the earthquake....You can view it here.


It is hard to believe the devastation, hunger, pain, cold, upheaval that people are feeling right now in another part of time and space... but as i ponder that, it's that way always.... isn't it? ....Somewhere someone is hurting. Someday it may be you... or me.


Yep, people are in turmoil and me?   I am in my little home typing on my computer, warm fire crackling at my side,  little dog resting by my feet.  It is raining.

 I pray for calm and restoration to the people of Japan.

I  have a special appreciation for things Japanese, and not long ago I picked up a book called The Road of the Tinkling Bell.   The book was haiku, short poems and paintings by a Japanese man.  I didn't know this until I had been reading the book for a while, but the author, Hoshino Tomihiro, had a special ability of painting and writing with a tool in his teeth and that is how he created the paintings in the book, and how he wrote the poems.

Tomihiro was born in Japan in 1946, was an avid gymnast in his youth, even a gymnastic coach until an accident in 1970 left him paralyzed from the neck down.  He spent nine years hospitalized, relearning how to live and how to use the brush in his mouth to write and paint. I also learned that he was a Christian.

I have to say I truly appreciated the personal insights into the Japanese world as well as the  heavenly light he shed in his poetry about his personal journey, which was, to say the least, a long and difficult road.  It was one of persevering in the darkness, one of enduring trauma and great difficulty... one that easily could have left a person in despair.  But He knew Jesus... and he had a hope despite the tragic situation he found himself in.... one he never expected for himself.

I pray this same spirit of comfort, peace and hope.... to all the people of this devastated land tonight as I think of them.  May they come to know Jesus if they do not... and if they do, may they be comforted by Him and the promises we have in Jesus Christ that one day God will right everything that has gone wrong.

The television is on, I can hear it over the hum of my conputer...and I find myself listening to reports of a nuclear meltdown taking place at their nuclear power plant in Japan.  They say radioactive waste is going into the atmosphere...

Watching now, re-runs of the catastophy, over and over there is joy in watching rescues in the turmoil of this event.  It's great to see an awestruck world community triy to figure out how best to render aid.  There is a mother with her baby smiling on the screen, glad they are alive.... a father, being reunited with his daughter.

I love happy endings!

Which reminds me...

When you know the God who raises the dead to life, you cannot help but have a happy ending... no matter how bad or how bleak things get to be.  God knows, the world is full of trials and tribulations,  but God , he is love.... and his ways are not the ways of this world we find ourselves in... every changing and hanging every instant.... with death waiting in the end.  No.  God has "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV). this is his message.... to us, just as it was to those he wrote those words to.

Those who believe on the one whom he sent, will be saved.  He will give us "beauty instead ashes [and] gladness instead of mourning" (Isaiah 61:3, NIV) in the end.