You simply cannot underestimate your emotional response to the sight of the ocean and its sunlit glistening waters. It’s almost like being able to take a deep breath when you haven’t breathed deeply for weeks, even months. This morning, for a few minutes of a lovely vacation, I looked down from our balcony to watch the stunning Gulf waters light up like tiny fireworks, such a beautiful escape from reality.
Still, you cannot escape when the world keeps turning, Hurricane Dorian threatens communities, and there is, once again, a reason to grieve the headline news of the day. How disheartening it is when the president of this nation goes lower and lower in his determination to dehumanize people and cause irreparable harm.
All the glistening ocean waters in the world cannot ease this sadness — learning the stories of very sick children who have 33 days to leave hospital intensive care units and return to their countries, while mourning a nation that seems to be disappearing.
Anthony Marino, director of immigration legal services, described the horrific dilemma: “I don’t know how they expect parents to pull their children from hospital beds, disconnect them from lifesaving treatments and go some place where they are know they are going to die. But that is what they are telling them to do.”
Often, I have posted the poignant and beautiful words written by my friend, Maren. I must do that today for the readers of my blog. Maren has captured the emotion of our shared grief.
PRAYER FOR THE SICK CHILDREN DEPORTATION
God, whom I’ve called
to sit with me all night long,
when I rocked children
with sore throats, swollen tonsils,
coughs that wouldn’t let them sleep,
when I promised
a precious one
everything would be better
as they pulled on their ear lobes,
or cried to be brave
with their broken bones,
rest your hands and heart
on parents who have come here
with their children
to be treated for
cancer or cerebral palsy,
cystic fibrosis or HIV,
eye malignancies,
short bowel syndrome,
heart disease,
or during the long wait
for a transplant.
For this government
is taking the lullabies away,
and in this new and cruel
deportation
turned Make-a-Wish
into Lose a Hope.
Visit Maren’s blog at: https://giftsinopenhands.wordpress.com/2019/08/30/prayer-for-the-sick-children-deportation/
God of the Sparrow 🌱 By Kathy Manis Findley 
Thank you, Kathy for including this — I really don’t know what to do with the sadness.
LikeLike
And thank you for your poignant words. I could not have expressed it as well. I agree that we are living with sadness we don’t know what to do with, and it keeps piling on as more acts of inhumanity rule the day.
LikeLike
Every day the immigrant population is being targeted as if they have no sacred worth or value. To send critically ill children away is heartless. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
LikeLike
Like my friend Maren commented, “I don’t know what to do with the sadness.” And I would have to add that I don’t know what to do with the anger and the feeling of being helpless to make any change.
LikeLike