Washington's Mudslide

The Mudslide:  Before and After

The Before and After pictures of the mudslide tell all--complete and utter devastation, an entire ecosystem changed in an instant.  The loss of life in seconds...  The area had been warned of the highest risks possible for exactly this kind of avalanche--it is that unstable.  Yet something there is in us that ignores the warnings and goes about life anyway.  Until that is--we lose it.  No explanations or "they were warned" suffice in the enormity of such loss.  There's no covering up such agony of loss. 
"Teach us O Lord to number our days by your grace," writes the Psalmist--and writes of the only true foundation for life.  All of life is a high risk zone.  One enzyme gone awry, a blood clot, a texting driver, an asthma attack--and suddenly, life is gone.  Only when we realize that life itself was the absolute gift do we muster the words of thanksgiving that we have what we have and can shape our lives by the choice of living thankfully while we have it.  There is also a before and after picture of lives that never knew, then lived in grace.  It reverses the above...into new growth, life, Life is found!