"He's got the whole world in His hands..."

He's Got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the wind and the rain in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands,

He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,_
He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,_
He's got the tiny little babies in His hands,
He's got the whole world in His hands

He's got you and me brother in His hands,_
He's got you and me sister in His hands,_
He's got you and me children in His hands,_
He's got the whole world in His hands…"

He's got my little bitty baby…who is now a beautiful tall woman…in His hands.  I pray this prayer everyday. 

Having a child living overseas brings Myanmar, Nairobi, Darfur, and Zimbabwe as close to you as your own heart.  When you hear her voice, in your ear on the phone from 12,000 miles away and your entire being feels her presence as if she were sitting next to you, the world suddenly shrinks like a deflating balloon. 

Global crises that once seemed so far away, so insurmountably "distant" are as close as your child's laughter is to you everyday that you are living with eight time zones and a vast ocean between you.  The first time she calls and isn't feeling well you realize that time and space cannot dull the ache of not being where she is to sing her to sleep and make her bowls of Cream of Wheat "with lots of brown sugar." 

I thought about this yesterday as I watched a young professor, who was teaching here in the states, interviewed about his parents and siblings who were still in Myanmar.  You could see the heartache in his eyes, you could heart the concern in his voice.  This was not a man who was relieved to be here away from the devastation, this was a man who wanted to be with his family helping his brothers find shelter for their parents, helping his sister carry her young children to safety.  To that young professor, Myanmar is not a world away…it is as close as his heart.

As I've watched news footage from Myanmar following this most recent cyclone's sweep across a sea of humanity, or of felt sickened by the media's coverage of violent civil unrest in an African country north of where my daughter lives, I breathe a prayer of longing for my neighbor's peace. I am so grateful to know that, even though the crises feels to those with loved ones in the midst of distant devastation and unrest, God is even closer.  God, Love bridges the gap between father and son laboring to save a family.  God as Mind imbues each of them with ideas, solutions, and yes, prayers that heal and save.

God comforts the heart of the mother whose daughter is not feeling well continents and oceans away while at the very same instant soothes the daughter who is feeling so far away from her mommy.  His love floods both the mother's…and the daughter's… thought with memories of childhood healings and the words to a forgotten, but well-loved hymn that can still the storms of worry and sadness, bringing peace to each troubled breast.   Both mother and daughter can rest as children in God's very wide-reaching divine arms.  The arms of this divine Mother stretch, as Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, "across continents and oceans to the globes remotest bounds" gathering us all to Her divine bosom.

Today my prayers for the mothers, fathers, grandparents, children, business owners, monks and emergency personnel in Myanmar are not for a nameless, faceless sea of humanity ten thousand miles away.  My prayers are for His sons and daughters, my brothers and sisters who are as close to me as the sound of my daughter's laughter…or tears…in my ear when she calls to "touch base"  at the end of her day.

We are all just "little bitty babies" in His hands.
Kate