When you say these words, be respectful.

When those words are said, it should be with the greatest respect, for they are said too easily and words that slip into common use often lose their depth of meaning.

Which words? 'I love you'? Yes, they count, however, I was thinking of two others.

The first is devastated.

How easy it is to say it, how often it slips into useage. The question is, do we really mean it? Think about this:
'I lost my mobile, I was devastated', or
'The wheel needed changing, Sam was devastated, he got oil on his designer shirt'.

So very, very easy to say. Not so easy to experience. Today is the anniversary of the Twin Towers disaster in New York, commonly known as 9/11. Now that is devastation on a magnitude that still beggars belief. As I watched the events unfold back then, beamed into my living room via modern technology it was an incomprehensible happening, so beyond the realms of my own experience that it felt unreal, even fictional. Even now, with events placed in their time and history, watching it being replayed still creates an odd moment of suspended reality where the world turns and stands still at the same time.

We weren't there. We watched and our eyes made some sort of sense of what we saw. Those who were there; who were caught up in that experience could not see what we could see. They did not know, comprehend or understand the bigger satellite picture being beamed around the world.

They were devastated; suddenly, instantly the world that made sense was gone and a new, devastatingly frightening and dangerous world emerged, devastation on a massive scale, beyond comprehension, beyond even the next breath.

Another time, another place, a distaster, not this time made by human beings, but by nature, the tsunami, the second word.  That word too has slipped into common useage, topical news programmes glibly announce
'A veritable tsunami of complaints were received'. I've heard:
'Guilt washed over me like a tsunami'.

How easily a new word is picked up and  made meaningless by its overuse in representing much more trivial events.

From today, when you use the words 'devastated' and 'tsunami', use them with respect and within a proper context, and in your heart, remember those who have suffered, and those who suffer still. May those who lost their lives rest in peace and safety with God, and those who hurt and grieve find comfort in His Son. Amen.