The Doorbell Chimes

The family was just sitting down to dinner, all those who were home that is, when the doorbell chimed. The husband was gone…again, so the wife went to see who was at the door. Her world changed in that moment. The sheriff, who stood on the other side of the door, wanted to know why they were still in the house, why they were living there. He informed her then that her home, her children’s home, had been foreclosed on and they needed to move.

She had no idea.

Over the course of the next few days she learned other things about the man she thought she knew, the man who was her husband and father of her children.

How can this be? How can life be just the way it’s always been and one second later it changes completely, for you and those you love?

This is an extreme case, I’ll give you that, but it happens everyday, to people we know, or not; lives changing, hearts breaking, when the doorbell chimes.

I can’t help but to think about this woman I did not know well, but knew for a while during a two year period. How is she coping? How are her children adapting?

I pray for her when she comes to mind.

The loss of home is so hard to overcome.

The loss of family harder still.

We tend to focus on the positive in the lives of those who are hurting so badly; what they will do, how they will make it. They will be okay, we tell ourselves, as we secretly wonder if we could survive such devastating circumstances.

She will, I know, be okay. Humans are resilient by nature and design.

But still I wonder.

And still I pray.