I had planned to whine about my lack of book sales for my next blog entry, but after all the horrible things that happened last week, I see how petty and trivial my own literary woes are.

What a tragic, nightmarish week it was for so many people. Bombs at the Marathon, explosions in Texas, floods in the MidWest, earthquake in China. So much damage, so many hurting people, so many dead. All of them desperately in need of help, of prayers.

There are individual tragedies every day, of course, families ripped apart by car wrecks, fires, accidents at work, etc. Even though those incidents are just as devastating for those involved, most of the time they don’t get the publicity that recent events have gotten. Hopefully, when the disaster is on a smaller scale, the people involved have a support system - friends, neighbors, family, a church family - who can provide help and encouragement to get them through the worst of it.  

But in a crisis that directly affects everyone around you, the ones who would normally be there to encourage and help are in the same situation. How can you offer shelter to a neighbor whose house was destroyed when your own home was wiped out by the same disaster? How can you comfort the friend who lost a sister when you are mourning the loss of a son or a daughter? 

As we have seen, even some injured people will rise to the occasion and try to help someone else who was hurt worse. But those of us who are safely distanced from these tragedies need to be the ones to step up, even if it is “only” by praying for physical and emotional healing for the victims.  Not just now while the media keeps the events in front of us, but in the months to come, after the attention has died down and the shock has worn off.

The rest of us can so easily forget and move on to the next media blitz while the very ones whose circumstances are keeping us enthralled now will still be coping with the aftermath. Some of them will be trying to salvage whatever is left of their lives after their homes were decimated, some will be learning to live without their loved ones, some will be trying to adjust to doing day-to-day activities with artificial limbs, and others will be faced every day with permanent scars each time they look in a mirror. All will still be dealing with scars in their spirits.  

So I’m writing a note to myself in my Bible to remind me to keep praying, not just for the people whose lives were recently thrown into upheaval, but for all of us, because one day, we may be the ones in need of prayer, and God promised that we would reap what we sow.  I, for one, fervently hope that in the event of a similar crisis, my family and friends would be covered by the prayers of strangers. It costs us so little to pray for others, but the result is so powerful!

...pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.

James 5:16   NKJV