Les Miserables

Tonight on PBS they showed the 25^th anniversary celebration of the musical

Les Miserables.  It was fantastic! 

Not only because the music was exceptional, but because my two little boys sat with me and watched the whole thing with me!!!  I explained a lot of it as it went… and I couldn’t help singing along with some of my favorite songs… but I had to shut my own mouth because I just can’t sing worth a crap next to someone like Lea Salonga.

It was so exciting for me to be able to share my love of music with my children.  They could see me smiling through all the songs, and the tears welling in my eyes through so many of them.

I hope my children will always be sensitive to the beautiful emotions that music has the power to bring.  I think music can speak to the soul like nothing else can.

I had “Bring Him Home” singing in my mind as I turned the channel and found the news on.

The reporters were in Japan covering the devastation that the earthquake and tsunami left behind.

New tears filled my eyes.

Not by beauty anymore, but by disaster. 

One of the last lines Valjean says in Les Miserables is “To love another person is to see the face of God.”

As the reporters showed pictures of Japanese families picking their way through crumbled homes, old women sleeping on the floor of high school gyms, children clinging to rescuers, and a man riding around the town with the name of his wife on his bicycle hoping someone would be able to tell him if she was okay, I think I saw the face of God in all their faces.

I love these people that I’ve never met. 

My heart breaks for their loss, and their pain, and their uncertainty.  They are truly “The Miserable” people on earth right now.  I pray, like Jean Valjean prayed that God will find it in His mercy to bring them home… to their families waiting and worried arms, to the warmth of a clean bed and food on their tables.  To quiet music whispering peace to their souls.   

I pray that for those who were lost in the tragedy that the Lord will bring them home to His eternal presence and warm, loving embrace, and that He comfort all those who will be mourning.

I find great peace knowing that this life is not the end.  I know that we can be with our family and friends again after we pass from this mortal existence. 

During these devastating times it’s so easy to question and blame God, when in reality the truth of life is that it will end someday.  For some sooner than later, but the length of a life isn’t what matters in the end.  It’s the quality of that life that matters. 

Did I make today count?

Another powerful reminder from Les Miserables is that “Tomorrow comes”… literally it’s coming fast… it’s already 1:20am here… I need to go to bed… but on a deeper note, for those who had a bad day today, remember that tomorrow does come, and the darkest night it always followed by a glorious sunrise. 

I pray that the sun rises and brings peace and comfort to those in Japan.