Giving...

My heart is aching...  And it has been since the first images of the earthquake damage in Haiti hit the TV.

It is so hard to comprehend.  I mean - the pictures SHOW the devestation but I can't put my mind around.  Buildings collapsed...with people in them.  There are people buried under tons and tons and tons of building materials and even other people.  How do you grasp that?  How is it in Central Indiana...where I've never been affected by an act of nature in such a severe way...I can really truly begin to understand and acknowledge what has happen? 

I can't. 

I look at the pictures on MSNBC.  I see the broken bodies and the broken buildings and the broken everything.  I hear the news reports that say 50,000 100,000 200,000 peoples lives are gone.  I read the online reports of the families waiting for their adopted children to get their Visas so they can come home...they are already adopted...paperwork is done...they were just waiting for the Visas and now?  All that information is buried...  Lost.  Gone. 

I see this stuff.  I hear it.  I read it.  I can not comprehend it.  I don't know how to make it all make sense.  I'll never understand.

But not understanding doesn't mean I can't help.  I CAN help.  Will I be able to save the world?  The country?  Definately not.  Will I be able to help the lives of those who have been hurt both physically and emotionally?  Probably not as much as they need but any amount has to be of benefit.

And as I sit here and work on this post, MSNBC is on in the background.  Rachel Maddow just reported that Americans have already given 11 MILLION dollars through text messaging...  $11 million!  What an amazing number.

So is the $50 I'm going to put in the Salvation Army bucket tomorrow going to make a difference?  I don't know...  I sure hope it does.  It is such a small amount in the face of the other amounts being given but I don't have hundreds of thousands to spare...  I hardly have $50 to spare.  But I am lucky enough to have a house still standing, a family who is safe and healthy and a state that is currently unharmed by natural disaster.  I'm thankful for that and I hope that my $50 makes someone else thankful as well.