Everyone who ran, everyone who watched, indeed everyone who has heard of what happened in Boston on Monday will never forget. And those who were injured – emotionally or physically – will carry images, emotions, and perhaps physical reminders of that day throughout the rest of their lives.

How do you cope when life changes in an instant? When you awaken from surgery to discover one or more limbs are gone, or you cannot sleep because the horrific scene you witnessed keeps playing and playing in your mind? What does your world become, now that you are so altered?

Where is God in the rubble?

Medical care, of course, is crucial to people suffering from the two blasts along the end of the Marathon route. And, not just emergency care, but ongoing care, to ensure the best possible outcome. For some, there will be difficult days of physical rehab ahead. For others, there will be great mourning. For still others, there will be hard time devoted to emotional unpacking, examining, and understanding. For all, including those of us who watched as the scene unfolded on television, there will be a need for deep prayer and reflection, and for seeking goodness from God, which is a powerful balm against pain and loss.

The time immediately after the blasts was filled with heroism and mercy; even those who were not first responders ran into the smoke and tried to render aid. In the aftermath, there continues to be a need for heroism and mercy – the heroism that comes from the determination to rise above and gain strength, and the mercy that comes from a desire to continue to help lift up. These grow courageously in the fertile soil of faith, and it is in them, in our souls, that God is and moves.

Indeed, when life changes in an instant, the one constant that never changes is God. We may mourn, waver, weep, and hurt. But through it all, Our Lord never ceases to be ready with His comfort. As we turn from television screens filled with those unforgetable scenes from Boston, and turn inward, we can know that life may change, but the spirit remains. God is not in the rubble, but rather He stays, firm and loving, in our hearts.

Blessings for the day,

Maureen