One Cross Stitch That Survived the Quake

"Really...WHAT...can I take?"

After the 2011 earthquake and ensuing nuclear radiation fiasco when we were leaving Koriyama, the only things that we could take were what could be carried in our backpacks. When we reached our destination after the long bus ride, I looked at some of the things that were brought and had to chuckle.

But at that time, there was no time to think carefully. Gasoline was scarce; public transportation wasn't moving; main roads and railways were broken up and unusable. We'd found a way to get out on a bus patching together usable back roads so got seats on it, but there was such a rush for it as soon as word got out about it, we couldn't get seats next to each other but ended up all sitting in separate rows.

The morning of March 11, hundreds of junior highers marched across their school platforms and received graduation diplomas...but that afternoon, some of them found themselves horrifically torn from their families--the diplomas they had earned a few hours earlier meant nothing to them then.

The tsunami is a good teacher. When a powerful black wave is receding into the ocean, pulling its victims with it, people realize instantly they do not value paper currencies and contracts floating by; it is the struggling, terrified sibling they automatically reach out their hand to help--and will risk their own lives to save, to keep from being sucked down into the whirling waters.

Perhaps a cute piece of handcraft may seem silly, frivolous. But family is one of the most important human gifts God can give us on this earth.

I rather think He prodded me to put this thingy into my backpack.