**The following blog post may be disturbing for you to read, but maybe you should read it…because I’m sure the people in Haiti didn’t have a chance to say, “Um, this is a little bit gruesome for us to handle…can you please not talk about it?”**

Let’s pretend Haiti’s earthquake just happened to you. Picture this however it looks in your own mind.

You, your family, and children are sitting in your home…maybe playing a game, watching TV, taking a nap, eating lunch. When all of a sudden a rumbling happens. You look at each other wondering what it was. The rumbling increases, everything starts falling off the counters. Your littlest one screams, “MOMMY! DADDY” Your house literally comes off it’s hinges, the ceiling breaks in two…you glance out the window to see other buildings collapsing….and then everything goes dark.

Let’s say you even make it outside your home. It’s utter chaos. People on your street screaming (those that made it), cars overturned or smashed beyond recognition. You stumble down the road, your neighbor is buried under a pile of rubble. Your other neighbor is screaming because the house just fell on his family.

Fast forward….

It’s been a couple of days. You and your family are sleeping in the street….on the bare ground. It’s cold. All your food is buried in the rubble. You are thirsty. You’re hungry….you’ve never given a thought to needing to eat before. WHERE are you going to get food from? Everyone else around you is in the same predicament you are, unable to get food. Maybe, just maybe you can get down into the local town to see if there is food there. Your kids (if they made it) are crying because they are hungry.

You stumble into town, the chaos is even crazier than on your own street. People are screaming, as you walk along the sidewalks you step over bodies….wait, was that someone I knew? Some children….babies….all piled up on the street. Screams, blood, some people are laying in the street alive, but barely….should you help them? What about your own family? People injured beyond recognition. You want to cover your eyes…you can’t look anymore.

The town is nuts, people shouting…looting. You can’t even get near the grocery store. Are those some people with guns up there? What are they doing?! They are shooting people so they can get to the food….what is going on? How did this happen? You brace yourself with fear because you don’t even know if you will be able to GET food. You look around, where are the police??? The ambulances??? Oh wait, they are buried in the rubble too. Will anyone help me? God where are you?!!!! Is this the end of the world???

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This scene just came to my mind just like a movie. See, I’m sitting in my bed right now. It’s pretty warm and cozy in my house. My kids are snoozing away in their rooms just a few steps away from me. I can’t wrap my mind around going from this to the chaos described in the preceding paragraphs. Can’t even fathom it. I think that’s my problem….I can’t.

I haven’t seen devastation. I haven’t lived in absolute tragedy. I haven’t had to see people die in front of me and I can’t do anything about it. I haven’t lost my child under a building standing there utterly helpless to save them. I haven’t held them in my arms while their life disappeared and no one was there to save them.

I know this blog is utterly disturbing, but maybe it should be. I think sometimes we need to THROW ourselves right smack dab into the middle of what reality is for 1/3 of Haiti’s population, and that is not our 3 bedroom, 2 bath home and nice SUV we drive. That’s not being able to open our refrigerator and say hmmm…I don’t have anything to eat while the shelves are full inside…something just doesn’t suit our fancy with what we see.

I am speaking to myself more I think through this post than anyone. This entire week I have sat and looked at utter devastation online, not just with Haiti but people right in our own country. I read the daily postings of a family whose youngest child is fighting a brain tumor. A mother who has been diagnosed with cervical cancer and wasn’t even supposed to make it to Christmas. How should she explain that to her 5 year old son? I read the blog of a woman who lost her husband in a bike accident and posted EVERY DAY of the entire year after her loss of her utter pain and grief. I read the blog of a mother who’s son passed away in a split second because of his heart and she talks about how she doesn’t want to even live anymore, how hard it is to go into his bedroom where she’s left everything just as it is.

Who am I kidding? What kind of reality do I think I’m living in?

God, wreck my heart so I can understand how good I have it. God, help me to never again stamp my feet in anger because YOU aren’t coming through the way I think you should. God, shame on me and may I ask for complete forgiveness when I have complained that I don’t have an easy life and that life is just “too hard” to live. I am ashamed….heart is broken….really no more words to say.

How do you feel? Have you had your eyes opened this week?

Look at the pictures. Look at them as disturbing they may be. Weep…cry for the loss of life…cry for a world in need of a savior…let your heart feel the raw painful emotion…it’s time.

CLICK HERE
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Do something about it:

The Red Cross
Compassion International
Samaritan’s Purse

One Response to “Haiti at your house”

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   […] » Haiti at your house timetotalkaboutit.com/?p=93 – view page – cached **The following blog post may be disturbing for you to read, but maybe you should read it…because I’m sure the people in Haiti didn’t have a chance to say, “Um, this is a little bit gruesome for us to handle…can you please not talk about it?”** […]

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