This article makes me sad. Not (just) because it details the devastation of the floods in Tennessee, a place that is near and dear to my heart, but because of quotes like these:
"My whole life was gone."
"In a matter of 30 minutes, everything you worked for, everything you thought was valuable, it all looks like trash."
I understand that losing one's home and stuff is awful. I would be upset too. So let's grant some grace for shell shock here.
But let's also be reflective enough to ask how our homes and stuff become "My whole life" and "Everything I thought was valuable."
5 comments:
I totally understand their sentiment and your post...and grace is granted. The most beautiful part of this whole situation is the hands and feet out there in the trenches, giving love, hope, and help to these devastated areas. No words can describe it...so I won't even try.
"everything I thought was valuable"...now many of us are aware of what truly is.
I've had to evacuate my parents twice out of their home in PA. It's devastating to think of the loss, and hard to always remember to Whom I owe all I have. Since then, I've tried to imagine if I had to evacuate my family immediately, what would cause me grief? We've had to work at this, but blessedly, I've been able to narrow it to just photos. That can be solved electronically, so the hardest struggle would be losing my family.
Seems like there might be a metaphor about how Jesus is like a flood and suddenly everything you valued is loss (Phil 3).
I took "everything I thought was valuable" a little differently.
I think the person just meant "every item I thought was valuable in my house", not literally everything in the world of value.
Speaking as someone who knows, "my whole life" and what you think is valuable take on a different (and better) meaning once you have lost all of your material possessions.
...not that I'd ever want to go through that again, but I'm better for having gone through that valley.
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