one by the faces from long ago popped up onto my screen, at exactly noon eastern standard time. Some of the faces I haven’t seen since I was 19 years old and too young and dumb to know how important those relationships would be in my life. Austria, Norway, Lithuania, Poland, US, Canada, the UK and so many more behind the screens that couldn’t make it on short notice from all over the globe. We all met in a tiny village, a small castle on a hill, and we became a community, joined together by the bonds of God’s love, not always our own. When one hurts we all hurt, when one rejoices we all rejoice. If you are in a country where one of them lives then you have a place to stay because though not tied by blood we are still family. At noon EST that family joined together today to pray for our friends in the Ukraine, some who are taking up arms, some who are hiding in the basement or metro stations, friends who we call family, community. Watching each face pop up on my screen today, all those old memories, all that love, that common goal of praying for a country in desperate need brought a lump to my throat. This is what God wanted for the world, for us. To LOVE each other, to hold each other up, to care, to help, to encourage, to hope for each other, to dream with each other; in his perfect world we wouldn’t be used to a face on a screen being the new way of seeing friends, there would be no pandemic. In his perfect world we would not be gathering around the world, cloaked in the Ukraine flag to show our solidarity with a country invaded just days ago, in his perfect world we wouldn’t see women and children forced to leave their men behind, women having babies in the subway to avoid being hit by an airstrike, or a child wrapped in a blanket sitting on the side of a road on the way to Poland.
No, this was not his plan but today as I sat behind the screen listening to voices from all over the world, various accents and voices raised from all corners of the world I saw a glimpse into his perfect plan for us and I was changed, full of hope, full of joy because this, this is what it is all about. This beautiful larger community, brothers and sisters in HIM, and no matter what unfolds here, we have all of that to look forward too on the other side of this life but without the pain, the war, the sickness, the hate…
Laurie
Through the Lens of Motherhood 