I was reading the news in the morning and ran across article showing pictures of the slow life of recovery after the Haitian earthquake. There was one particular picture which, when I saw it, completely wrecked me.
This is the picture:
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The caption reads: Darlene Claircin, 28, displaced by the 2010 earthquake, reads the Bible inside a shed-like, temporary shelter built by the Red Cross that she and her husband are renting in Port-au-Prince.
Here, this Haitian woman, though her home is gone, though her neighborhood is gone, though all around her is still chaos, though she sleeps in a shed, is reading her Bible and engaging with God.
And here I am, typing on my Macbook Air, in my newly furnished apartment, with three Bibles on my shelf, some with dust on them.
This isn’t a guilt-trip; it’s a conviction of displaced values.
I am surrounded by a culture with wayward priorities. The things we see as important are often so fickle and unimportant. And maybe we can take a lesson from the Haitian people (and even the Japanese): it can all be gone in a flash.
And if that is so, what will remain? Will our faith remain?
Or would we find that the foundations of our love for God were too weak to bring us through the storms of life? And so find our treasures in heaven bereft, indicative of a life spent pursuing vain pursuits?
