Thirty-three miners trapped for 17 days in an underground mine in Chile! There are two amazing stories here - one, all 33 are alive and well; and two, it will take 2-4 months to get them out of the mine. A small hole was drilled that enabled a message to be sent from the miners to the surface that they were alive and safe. That same hole can be used for sending food and water to the miners and maintaining communication with them. However, the hole is too small to use to remove the miners. It will take 2-4 months to drill a large enough openning to use for the release of the miners from the mine. Christmas is the time being used most often in the news reports as a time for their release.
After seeing that on the news, I wondered if I were one of those 33, could I wait that long to be rescued? Or if I were one of the family members of one of those 33, could I patiently wait for a larger hole to be dug over a 2-4 month period for my loved one to be rescued?
We all have a tendency to expect everything we want to happen quickly. The truth is that most things of real value and importance do not happen quickly, rather they tend to develop and evolve over an extended period of time. For example, an education is often measured by the time period of kindergarten through 12th grade, followed by 4 years of college and maybe 2 to 4 years of graduate school. The truth is that an education is a lifelong process that still has many gaps when our physical lives end.
Today we are concerned about the year long time that a military serviceman might serve in Afghanistan or in Iraq. The truth is that many of them serve two, three, or even four tours of a year each. Some of our fathers and grandfathers served up to four years away from family during World War II either in Europe, Africa, or the Pacific. Whether today or yesterday, it is a long time waiting for a loved one to come home safely.
I wish that I could get a better grasp of the entirety of life. Maybe then I could accept that some of life's events don't really take as long as I currently believe they do. At the same time, maybe I could be more patient in waiting for those happenings that will actually take an extended period of time.
One final thought today - in the area where I live, today is the first day of a new school year for many school districts. My own children have been out of public schools for 16 and 18 years respectively. That is a long time. But it must be a short time because I can still remember the days that each of them was born, the first time I held them, and the first time I heard their sweet little cries.
Time is a funny thing. Two to four months seems like a lifetime if you are trapped in a mine. Two to four months isn't even a full semester of one school year. "Lord, help me be patient enough to wait for the things that are worthwhile and that add value to life. Help me to be disciplined enough to resist quick and easy fixes that have little value and marginalize life."
