A WAY THROUGH THE WORLD

A WAY THROUGH THE WORLD

One day this week a man went into a hospital and began shooting people, killing three of them. On another day this week a man got lost in the north woods of Michigan. Sixteen people, 2 dogs and 2 helicopters went out to find him.  They walked through tortuous terrain, which they said was often chest deep waters, until they found him. They built a fire to warm him because of hypothermia and dehydration, but he was too weak to carry out so a helicopter crew rescued him in a basket.  The sixteen people and the dogs then walked back out through that terrain and by that time some of them needed medical help, too.  Oh, and by the way, this was in the middle of the night. 

How are we expected to make our way through this crazy world?  Stories like these are repeated every day all over the world.  Good and bad side by side.  It ‘s tempting to lose hope, to feel that evil is insurmountable. That is an easy mistake to make because evil is so noisy and good is so quiet. Case in point; the gunman made the headlines and the top stories in the news while the heroic rescue team goes unnoticed.  

Our sole comfort is knowing that Jesus has been here and made his way through the world, which was as crazy then as it now.   Jesus, who is our brother, our leader and our God, bore all that the world can dish out and came out triumphant, is our strength and our comfort.  The meaning of his life was not to show us how to get to heaven, but to show us how to live on this earth.  He just kept on moving.  He never lost faith in his cause, he never looked back, and his trust in God never wavered.  He has set the example we are to follow. 

We must stand for what is right.  We must defend the defenseless.  We must speak out against injustice.  In short, we must live our lives as he lived his.  We have to ignore what we can’t control, keep the faith and never lose hope. 

On this Thanksgiving, let us thank God for Jesus, our beacon through this world. 

May God bless you all, 

Carol Lemelin OPA

PS: I am especially thankful for you and your kind responses to my words.