It travels with me…

[AnnaFromTheNetherlands]

Yesterday we were driving to the ferry that would take us to the UK. With just a kilometer to go, I saw a small group of people along the road. At first, it didn’t mean anything to me.

 

Then I saw several small groups walking and wondered if they were seasonal workers.

 

After that, I noticed that some of the groups were wearing orange vests, so I assumed it was for safety, since they were walking along the highway.

 

Suddenly it dawned on me that they were life jackets, and I had a chilling realization.

 

At that moment, my sister—who was driving in the car ahead of me—texted: “On our right, a refugee camp.”

 

Shocked, the children and I saw, under the meager shelter of a small patch of woods, all kinds of makeshift tents made of tarps. Among them were people moving about, tending to their small cooking pots.

A mother with a child on her back ran through the field, a life jacket under her arms… was there a small boat waiting for her?

 

Sometimes the contrast with your own pleasure trip feels overwhelming. But let’s be honest: the contrast with our comfortable lives is always there. We just don’t usually see it so directly. Most of the time, there’s the safe glass of our televisions in between.

 

One day, I will travel and see only happy people—wherever I look. But for now, the fate of these strangers travels with me a little as I enter the UK, just as the suffering in the world always travels with me a little. Day by day it lingers, that ever-present awareness: as things are now, it isn’t right.

 

But I’m not the only one who feels that:

“In all their distress, it was distressing to him as well…”

 

For thousands of years, our Father has seen what we see—but on a much greater scale, because He sees everything, and every person, at every moment.

 

The thought that it pains Him even more than it does me, and that He carries all of it, brings me comfort. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground without Him noticing.

 

“You see it, Father, you see it too…”

 

And He will resolve it—He will make it right. But for now, I hope that the mother I saw running through the field arrives safely. That the sea remains calm, and that one day she will live in another world together with me.

Together with all of us.

Together with Jehovah.