2.16.2010

Haiti - Starting to Grieve

I read an article in the New York Times entitled "Haiti Emerges From Its Shock and Tears Roll."

In addition to the sadness over the sheer number of people who were lost in the recent earthquake, I was hit by this quote in the article:

“Angie was a nobody, she died a nobody, she will never have a funeral, she will never have a tombstone,” Ms. Dupoux said. “She is just one of the nameless, faceless victims, and I hate that.”

The Angie Ms. Dupoux is referring to is her 17 year old cousin. A young woman who died of fright after surviving the earthquake.
To die of fright at 17... that took my breath away. I was completely stunned.
What hurt, though, is the comment that Angie was a nobody, she died a faceless, nameless nobody. I know what Ms. Dupoux means but my heart just leapt at that statement. Angie didn't die a nobody. She isn't a nameless, faceless victim.

God knows every hair on Angie's head. He knows her face intimately. He knows her name - He chose it for her.

I know - she meant in human terms and her grief is right now, this present, this reality. I understand that but there is just no hope in that quote. None. And it breaks my heart that the God of all Hope is a breath away and she doesn't know Him. Not intimately. Not the way it would take for that quote to have never been said...

How well do we profess the God of all Hope and Comfort? Why do we not know Him amidst such grief? How do I share Him better? Why does this love I feel not make my words sing, why do I stay quiet? The Hope I know - who have I told?

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