Disconnected

Today has been a really strange day for me. I've felt really disconnected...from myself, from my life, I can't really explain it. I have been suffering from a mild tension headache all day, which could be part of it, I've also been feeling incredibly tired. It's almost like I'm half drunk or something. I feel disjointed, strange. It's odd.

I've been feeling really aware of the fact that I am so SMALL in this big world. In the past few days I've learned of many horribly sad events that are happening to people I know, people that live around here, or people that are close to me. It's making me feel very helpless. It's making me feel really sad. Sad for the world that we live in. So lost, so messed up with it's priorities, so full of violence, so full of tragedy. The big question "Why" has been on my mind a lot in the last few days.

From hearing of a couple living near here that had a baby last Thursday, and then lost her on Friday, to a dear friend losing her father quite suddenly, to a sudden and horrible illness in a person we know. I can hardly stand to watch the news or read the paper. An 18 month old being killed by a pickup truck backing out of a driveway. How do people closely involved in things like that EVER recover? I don't know.

So how do we deal with these things...besides asking the question "why", and knowing we can't do anything to 'make it better', what do we do? Well, I'm a Mennonite, so I cook. I've been doing a lot of cooking this week. I took supper over last night for my friend who lost her dad, it was no big deal, I was making chili, I just doubled the recipe. She mentioned that another lady had brought over some squares a few days before and how they'd talked about how people rarely do that anymore. Fortunately for me, I belong to a church full of Mennonites :) When people have babies, we cook for them. When people get out of the hospital, we take meals in. When people lose a loved one, we feed them. I told my friend that it's really the only thing that I know I can do that will help. I mean, I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how to help take away her pain, but I did know how to help her to have a decent meal when she's distracted with everything else on her mind this week. Food is such a comfort. It's like a big hug.

It makes me sad that this is such a rare thing for our time. Why is it that we don't know our neighbours? We wouldn't even know if our neighbours lost a loved one, or had a baby. We never see them. Nobody sits out on the front porch and talks across the street in the evenings. Is it that we're so private we don't want the neighbours to all know us? Are we too busy with our own lives to bother getting involved in everyone elses? Taking meals in is something I do for my friends, but I'm just as guilty as the rest of my community as far as taking care of my neighbours. Joel's pretty good, there are tangible ways he can help our neighbours like plowing their driveways, or cleaning out their eaves troughs when they don't have a man around the house that can do those jobs anymore. But what can I do? I know of one other girl my age that lives just across the street and down a bit from me, and we've never exchanged more than one word. She's shy and stays home most of the time, I'm outside a lot, but I still consider myself to be shy with people that i don't know.

I need to do better, I need to get to know my neighbours and care about them.

Anyway, that's where my foggy brain has been today. Crying for all those people who are hurting right now, feeling distant from those around me, feeling like there is little I can do to help. This is hard for me, the control freak.

So I pray. I cook, and I pray. Not even knowing what to pray for a lot of the time, but just praying that God will provide what these people need.

It's good to know I don't have to carry the world on my own shoulders. It's a great, big, hurting world.

Disconnected

Mel