I sit here this morning at my desk, mourning.
What do I have to mourn, you ask? Christmas with my family and friends was gorgeous. I am beyond blessed. So why am I shedding a few tears?
Because Lady Sybil Branson is dead.
Yes, that’s right–I am a Downton Abbey addict. I rejoiced when Mrs. Hughes found out the lump on her chest was not cancer, and I grieved when Mr. Bates was taken to prison. Sometimes I feel as though I am living through the early 1900s with the Crawleys myself.
And though I am re-watching all the episodes before season six premieres (I’ve got to prepare myself, right?) and I have seen Sybil’s death played out before, I cannot stop myself from lamenting with her husband, poor Tom, and Cora, a grieved mother. I ache when they ache, and I cannot bear to see any of the family in such terrible pain.
Because, when I think about it, I couldn’t bear to see my family in such terrible pain.
Tragedies like Sybil’s occur every minute of every day, though we may not realize it. Starvation, disease, freak accidents, old age, and deaths by childbirth run rampant across our big, beautiful world. And we, as humans, do the best we can to ignore the impending sense of doom surrounding us.
We become numb to pain.
And to quote Augustus Waters from The Fault in Our Stars, “Pain demands to be felt.”
No, I am not referring to the pain you may feel when a family member passes or a good friend moves away; I am referring to the pain all around us. Suffocating us. The children dying from malnourishment and the women suffering under the hand of sex trafficking.
PAIN IS EVERYWHERE. We simply choose what kind of pain we want to feel.
It is our duty as inhabitants of this Earth, and as Christians, to be aware of what is going on in our world today. Right now. To do what we can to help. To pray for our brothers and sisters ministering in China. To love the person you really don’t want to. To spread a little kindness by slipping the homeless man on the street a couple dollars.
This life is short. We never know how much time we have left to make a difference. So I encourage you to make the most of yours. Attune your heart and your ears to hear the plan God has for you, and do. It’s never too late.
James 1:22 & 25 say, But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves…But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
don’t ever forget that you’re a citizen of this world, and there are things you can do to lift the human spirit.
// aaron sorkin
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