Tuesday, October 19, 2010

This is not okay.

I have moments where I know that things will not be okay.
I was surprised to find an email in my inbox from Jeremy at 2 in the afternoon. He normally emailed me from 10pm-5am, my time. And the length of the email upon opening it surprised me.
As I read the email, I couldn't believe the words my eyes were taking in. I had to read the email twice before the gravity of it settled like a heavy weight in my stomach. Before I could stop the tears, they were rolling off my cheeks onto the keyboard.
This is not okay.
He is not okay.
I am not okay.
The horrors of war are okay when they are safely contained on a movie screen. Or confined to the pages of a book that a stranger wrote. But when they are from the person that you love, when they are as fresh as the blood of innocent lives lost, or a village still smoldering, then it is not okay.
My body aches. My heart aches. There is absolutely nothing that I can do or that I can say to offer comfort in this situation. This seems to be as wrong as the world gets. I pray, but for what? That Jeremy can see what he saw and somehow be okay? That he can get back to life in the states and be happy again, laugh again, after witnessing what he has seen? That whatever and whoever is left after an air strike can move on with their lives without a body of their child, or their husband, or their wife to mourn over? Christians, in these circumstances, would seek to see those affected come to Christ out of these kinds of circumstances. But what Muslim is going to seek after the God of the men who just ended their lives? What hope is there in such destruction? What kind of light can pierce that darkness? I don't see any. You can't tell people that "It will be okay."
It will not be okay.

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