Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Sean Dietrich

Be with them, Lord.
Comfort them. Embrace them. Bolster them. Ease their pain. Hold them like a parent holds a child. Give them uncommon strength during these present moments of horror.

Help them remember to eat. Help them remember to hydrate. Take care of their bodies. Because right now, many of them don’t care whether they live or die.

As I write this, 51 have been killed in the Texas floods, at least, and 15 are kids. The total of missing people isn’t even clear yet. What is clear is that 27 of them are girls who were attending Camp Mystic, a Christian youth camp on the River Guadalupe in Kerr County, the area worst affected.

Nearly 850 have been rescued, and 1,700 have been involved with the rescue operations.

So be with them, God. Be there in silent ways nobody would ever expect. Give them supernatural signs that their loved ones are still out there. Give comfort to those whose loved ones have passed, and are now safely with you.

Give them all little miracles, God. Coat their hearts with tranquility and stillness. Whisper in their ears, words of affection and peace.

Be with the siblings of the girls who were lost. Be with the girls’ grandparents. With the camp staff. Be with the remorseful, the ones who cannot stop blaming themselves.

Be with the girls’ friends from school. With their teachers who loved them so. Be with the family pets, who still wait at front doors, tails wagging, wondering when their favorite girl is going to get back home.

Be with the entire community. Drape yourself over their towns and neighborhoods like a heavy mist.

Be with the rescuers, the first responders, the volunteers. Be with the EMTs, police officers, fire-medics, rescue parties, K-9 unit search teams, trauma therapists, local church volunteers.

Be with the feeders, the casserole makers, the babysitters, the donators, the givers, the helpers, the supplies getters, the drivers, the do-whatever-needs-to-be-done-doers.

Be with the prayer makers, the caretakers, the mover-and-shakers, the backbreakers, the policy-makers and the undertakers.

Show them who you are. Show the cynics. Show the wounded. Give them a glimpse of how you roll in times of tragedy, and in the midst of hell itself.

Prove yourself to all who shake their fists at the clouds and shout, “What kind of a cruel God could do this?!”

They’ve been saying this kind of thing since the dawn of man. And the argument is valid. They deserve to be filled with rage. They have every right not to believe in your love.

But show them just the same, Lord.

Show them that death is not real. For we are not really born, thus we don’t truly die. You were loving our souls before we were in the womb, before time began, you were cradling our souls against your breast. Before you created the heavens and the firmament, you held us in your arms.

And so shall you love us until the ends of infinity, and even thereafter, and whatever comes after that. And maybe on that final day, it will all make sense.

Help us feel it. Because right now, it’s hard to feel anything but sorrow.

Amen.

(Sean Dietrich is a columnist, humorist, multi-instrumentalist and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South.)