“Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” (Isaiah 40:26)
The loss of seven astronauts on the Columbia last Saturday will not soon be forgotten. In fact, it’s one of a string of national tragedies that we not only remember, we even remember where we were when we first heard the news.
I remember exactly where I was when I first heard that President Kennedy had been shot, or when the Challenger exploded just after takeoff in 1986, killing its crew of seven. Events like these are indelibly etched in our national memory. Do you know where you were when you first heard that the planes had flown into the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001?
I was particularly proud of how President Bush responded to the news that the Columbia was lost. We all have heard the jokes that imply he’s not smart enough to be president, even though his national approval ratings are as high as any sitting American president has ever enjoyed. I guess we all like him so much because he “dumb” enough to allow his faith to guide him and put his heart out there for the country to see.
That’s what he did last Saturday, and again during the memorial service on Tuesday. He cried, he quoted Scripture and he told us that he knew a God who knew each one of Columbia’s crew by name. “In the skies today we saw destruction and tragedy,” he told the nation. “Yet farther than we can see, there is comfort and hope.”
It was hard to watch those families grieve as they listened to President Bush and others during the memorial service. “In time,” the president told the families, “you will find comfort and the grace to see you through. And in God’s own time, we can pray that the day of your reunion will come.”
These tragedies seem to be coming much faster lately, one right behind another. They draw us together as a nation. We literally grieve for people we never knew. Will you ever forget the image of those children, weeping as they listened to President Bush and others as they eulogized the mom or dad that had been snatched away from them, right in front of their own eyes?
The simple blessings we enjoy become all the more obvious to us as we try to make sense out of tragedy. We put our arms around one another, no longer ashamed to say I love you, or to admit we haven’t said it in a while. We telephone friends we haven’t heard from in months. Some of us even called our grandparents, parents, or other family members, all because we realize that tomorrow is not promised. Ultimately many of us will resume taking life for granted again, but for now, we know the blessings it brings can not be taken for granted, at least not right now.
When I was a child, like most children, I looked to my father for guidance when I was afraid, or didn’t know what to think of all that was going on in my life. Today, I have a heavenly father to whom I look and thank for the blessings that have come my way.
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