Life’s surprises and the refugees

April 7, Boston (in my journal)

I'm sitting at my kitchen table, listening to the snow melting outside like a pouring rain! It was 70 degrees the other day! So, it seems one minute I’m outside snapping pictures of my purple striped crocuses and yellow daffodils.  The next they’re doused with a freezing blanket of white and I’m out there shoveling in a bone-chilling 18 degrees! Even the birds seemed confused, squawking madly in the trees. I imagined they were saying, "What the heck is this? I thought it was spring already!"

Life is certainly full of surprises.

Just this morning I read an article by a rabbi and found it surprising that a word I've been hearing my entire life can suddenly take on a Biblical dimension and is actually based in God's Word!

“Abrakadabra!” we would say. We used it as kids, waving invisible magic wands around and telling things to magically appear! Come to find out, those words are derived from Hebrew and literally refer to the act of God creating something out of nothing, as in, “Abra kdabra,” Let there be light!

Apparently, God's been in the business of making surprises since Eden. And no matter how "old" we get, you turn around and bump into something else you never thought or imagined. Life is full of surprises!  

The other day for instance, I got a little yellow sticky note with my rent invoice. Seems the landlord's hinting that I might have to get out of Dodge! Well, this throws a wrench in the works, I thought. I dread moving. What a hassle when you're living alone!  

Oh Lord, I wish I didn't have to move, I whined, sounding a little like the birds in the trees I was poking fun at.  Then I thought of the refugees who of course, have been forced through many a change! What is it like for them?

One day you have a job and house and the garden is growing normally. Your family makes it to dinner and you have some money in the bank. Life is good! Then, all of a sudden, tanks are rolling through the streets. Buildings crumble. Food disappears. Lives are destroyed, and you find yourself wondering where your next meal’s coming from.

The average American doesn’t understand the politics of their awful circumstances. We’re not accustomed to police showing up at the door and shooting, raping, burning houses, just for the fun of it. 

“Get a job!” people gripe. “Go back to where you came from!” cynics whine under their breath. Sadly, many of our quick responses seem ignorant of the life-threatening realities of the oppressed and persecuted.

Don’t you want to live where your family can walk outside without taking their lives in their hands? Wouldn’t you strive to go where you can work and sleep in safety, away from bombs and guns and riots in the streets? Away from the rubble and destruction and madness of war?

If we stopped to think about it, you know you would do the same thing as the 65 million refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people) in the world today. We’d apply for asylum in a free country and pray for a chance to raise our children where they have opportunities for an education and a future.

For believers, we see dozens of examples of people who had to flee from terrorism and hostile environments. Abraham, Hagar, Jacob, Moses, David, even Joseph and Mary with their baby Jesus!

How can we be so insensitive and short-sighted as to blame the victims for their plight? How can educated people who see the damages of war in the world, and who know the powerful hatred and threat of tyrant leaders, turn their backs and shut their hearts to this need?

The refugee crisis has reached an alarming all–time high. We’ve seen the video footage, we’ve watched the throngs of wanderers waiting at barbed wire fences and even being sprayed with fire hoses or bombed with tear gas on the borders of fearing nations.

We’ve seen the faces on the news for many months now… women and old men clutching their children, crouching in muddy slopes, or arriving in little dinghies, cold, half starved, and begging for refuge.

Let's seek God's heart in all this. Maybe you want to help and don’t know how. Maybe you see the news and think, I can’t change the politics or fly around the globe to offer warmth or a hand.

Then again, maybe you have a few boxes in the basement or garage with extra linens and pots, bureaus and lamps…  and maybe you can help some kids read a book and learn some English, play a game, or pick up some groceries. Maybe there is something you can do to make a difference.  

No one person can stop the wars and change the world overnight, but like throwing starfish back into the sea, you can make a huge impact, one family at a time, eh?