Day 3: Gloom and Doom, Give Thanks In Spite?

We had a great Thanksgiving time at Church- just because. Just because Jesus Christ is worthy and He is everything to us. The whole service was dedicated to just that, and we had a blast (no pun intended). The embedded picture shows a still clip of the exuberant praise of grateful believers as each neighborhood section of the church took turns coming up to give thank offerings and sing… Not knowing what was to happen later in the day- yet would we then withdraw our praise?

As I was catching up with friends later in the day, the news of the Dana plane crash (which also crashed into a house), and the church bomb blast made it’s way through the air waves. It felt like a pretty dark day. In addition to that, there was a Lagos–Ibadan expressway car accident pile up as well as another plane that crashed into Ghana from Nigeria. It was heavy, and it seemed there was only a maximum of 3 degrees of separation for everyone around knowing someone in the crash. Some families were wiped out at once or in multiples. “Khai!” (a Nigerian expression of shock).  For many, June 3, 2012 was disastrous, but to think that somewhere else in the world, a celebration was probably taking place, as a child was being born. My heart still lifts up the bereaved to our God.