Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28
Our oldest son contacted me online today around 12:30 AM his time from a rural location in Thailand about 50 miles from the 7.0 epicenter of yesterday’s Myanmar earthquake. He and other teachers had been spending the past 5 days supervising a group of high school seniors from their international school in Tokyo on a mission service project. They now wondered, somewhat ironically, if they had brought seismic instability with them to a part of the world that has not had an earthquake in decades. As he talked to me, his computer camera began to waver and shake again as he sat through another one of several aftershock tremors.
It was unnerving, to say the least. He couldn’t relax enough to sleep. The long planned week in Thailand so far had been a welcome relief from the constant tremors over the previous ten days in Japan, and seemed like an opportunity to forget the uncertainty of that evolving disaster. Instead, uncertainty followed this dedicated group of teachers and students and found them tucked away on a mountainside, building a foundation for a rural Thai school, almost a stone’s throw from Myanmar.
He was weary, I could tell. He was burdened and troubled by all he and the others had experienced over the last two weeks, it was obvious. He was worried about his students and how they were coping, at such a young age, with another powerful reminder that human control of events on this earth is illusory. As his mother, sitting helplessly at my kitchen computer over 8000 miles away where he could see through the window behind me how our farm was starting to bloom with spring, the only thing I could say was something he knew and had already shared with his students.
You are in God’s care, no matter what.
He is in control, not us.
He knows what being afraid feels like and tells us not to fear.
He has promised you will know His care and comfort.
He will not abandon you in your time of need.
He will let you rest.
Despite the earth trembling as he lay down his head, he fell asleep.
Amen.
Barnstorming 