Now.
Now we are in the final days before Christmas. Our houses are filled with candle light and the smell of Christmas cookies. We are rushing through the department stores in search of the perfect presents and let’s hope we don’t forget anyone. We spend hours planning the Christmas meal. After a long and busy year we just long for a few quiet days with family, rest and peace.
This is our now.
Now.
Now the people of Aleppo are in the final days of their war, their lives. Their houses are nothing but a pile of bricks and burned down structure, all they have left is what they can carry on their backs. They are running through the streets in search for some safe place, some last fortress against the terror going on outside. They spend hours waiting for help and support to come. After another year of war and suffering they long for a few more days, a bit more hope, change after all.
This is their now.
The difference is appaling, terrible, embarrassing.
I spent all Wednesday afternoon reading news on Aleppo, watching final messages, listening to pleas of help. After so many years of war in Syria, this seems to be it.
Is this the end?
The conflict is complicated and in our media-saturated world it’s not easy to figure out what is truth and what isn’t.
But this is no excuse.
No matter how much we know or don’t know – we can never say we didn’t know.
We knew.
I knew.
The more I read and watch, the more I have to admit how little I actually know. While I have been so busy with my life, they were fighting hard to not lose theirs.
The more I get to know what their NOW looks like, the less I feel like enjoying mine.
This is what leaves me so angry, confused, helpless, hopeless.
This is what makes me wonder how there can be such a difference of now.
This is what makes me cry out to the One who says he sees all of it, their now and our now. Do you really see?
Are you really there?
Have mercy.
Writing the last Five Minute Friday of 2016 today.
It’s not beautiful, it’s rough, messy and honest.
That’s life.
thisiskatha.com 
Well-said, Katha. Having fought through some un-named Aleppos of the past, I do feel the dichotomy, especially this time of year, and when I could still go out I tended to avoid shopping centres. The juxtaposition of memory and the present was simply too much to bear.
#1 at FMF this week.
http://blessed-are-the-pure-of-heart.blogspot.com/2016/12/your-dying-spouse-246-defiance-despair.html
Thanks, Andrew! Staying away, that’s what I did most of the time.
Katha, thank you! This is my heart right now too. I want so desperately for those people in Aleppo to know peace and safety. Your words were balm for my soul today. I’m in the 60 spot today.
Thank you so much, Tara!
It is, indeed “rough, messy, and honest. Visiting from FMF, and Now I must read some previous posts because I see you have a heading for TCKs, and I, too, am a TCK! (So few know that term.)
I hope you find peace in your now and enjoy the gift of your blessings.
Great to have you come by! Where do you live? What’s your TCK story?