I was too small to see the top of the ironing board, but knew she was weeping as she pushed the iron across it. I understood better when I watched the black and white scene of a young boy saluting as his father's casket rolled by. I can still hear the horse hooves. To this day that sound hits me with a mixed sense of regal and tragic.
And then, as I continued to grow up, I remember two other assassins and their victims. Black and white, and wondered to myself if important people would be able to live any more.
I remember dancing with my infant children as Eastern Europe's wall fell, and as people teemed through its widening seams. And I wondered how the world would work with such desperate need meeting such complacent plenty.
I think this day will be such a memory. Trying to work at my office while listening to the BBC depict the events in Cairo, where I walked just three short months ago.
We like to think we know how history should turn. We may even believe we know best. But as one who prays multiple times each day: "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," I am observing as a little one. I'm trusting in the hand of God, the wisdom of his ways and the strength of his people.
Who knew that the "Godless Communists" would have held onto faith midst such dark realities? Who knew the wall fell that relational and spiritual wealth would not flow West to East alone?
And who knows but what God's Kingdom may yet have a chance of becoming reality among us? Why, after all, do we pray for it, if we are going to cower and groan when our world changes shape in ways we cannot control? We can't even see the top of the ironing board.
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