The death toll in the countries struck by the tidal waves continues to mount as more bodies are discovered weeks after the catastrophe. The estimate is now over 150,000 lives lost and many more still missing. The survivors grieve for the dead but also are beginning to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Several governments have discovered an unexpected benefit from the overwhelming waves. Nature reclaimed many areas overbuilt with jumbled human homes and businesses, restoring the areas to their natural state. Now the rebuilding will be planned carefully with disaster relief funds to preserve the environment while creating new homes and businesses for the remaining citizens of the area.

The citizens in California and other western states afflicted by wild winter weather are not faring well. Many mudslides are claiming lives and property with the end still not in sight. Other areas have had record snowfalls, some measured in many feet of snow. The weathermen are still somberly reporting Biblical-level catastrophes and puzzling over why the weather is so severe. Europe also had severe weather.

It has been rainy and spring-like here, unusually warm for this time of year. We've had nights where the lows were in the 60's degree F. That seems impossible for this time of year, but the cats were out playing in the garden in this unexpected luxury for them. It finally turned cold again with the cats grouchily confined to the house at night for their protection against frostbite.

Mischief had had to be kept inside for several days because he was ill with some infection. For once the naughty boy had not been in a fight, puzzling the vet with the origin of his fever. By the time the vet had carefully examined every part of his body that could be squeezed, probed, and had its fur spread open to look for injuries, Mischief had been as manhandled as he had ever been in his life. The vet finally gave him a shot of antibiotics and more antibiotic liquid to take for several days. He was much better the next day and yowling to go out by that evening.

He was kept in for several days longer to make sure he was well over it. He was quite happy to go out when I finally started taking more mulch out to the garden and let him go out with me. I kept reminding myself that it would be utterly foolish to try planting early spinach no matter how nice it was. February is often harsher than January and those frosty weeks have yet to pass. My little bit of spring is the new cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce seedlings under the grow light. They just started emerging a few days ago, and the flats are slowly filling with tiny leaves atop threadlike stems.

The planting dates are marching back onto the organizer list for this year. The early spinach planting date is so temptingly close! I can almost taste the succulent first bites already. This adult madness was incomprehensible in my childhood when spinach was Popeye's treat threateningly lurking in those cans in the cupboard. The taste of fresh spinach is so much better than the canned version that it ought to be child abuse to start children on the preserved form, yet the slither of mushy leaves into a saucepan to reheat them and only strengthen their flavor is a childhood millstone inflicted by many well-meaning parents.

The crafting continues as I wait out the last few weeks before spring planting is finally a reasonable risk. I've got the blue sweater almost finished, but my aching arms have finally convinced me that I should work on that flannel quilt for a while. I've got those cat blocks out trying a few flower appliques but I'm still not quite satisfied with the results. I know what I want, but my technique lacks the necessary skill. I will probably stick to some simpler flowers and fill in with quilted motifs to add details. I'm in my usual dithering design mode, but at least I've got some ideas turning into actual work done again.

I had a further incentive to switch to designing for a while. I needed some patching myself in the form of a pacemaker replacement. That reminder of my own mortality came too close to the disaster stories for my comfort. The new pacemaker is keeping my heart beating while other hearts have stopped abruptly without warning due to events out of their owner's control.

The old pacemaker gave me about eight years of life beyond what my own heart would have provided. Every time that I had it checked to see if its battery was still strong enough to sustain me was a reminder of the fragility of the human form that currently houses my spirit. The last year has literally been a countdown with the appointments to check it spaced closer together until my doctor finally announced that the old unit would have to be replaced.

The Bible urges us to number our days and make good use of them, but it is so easy to disregard that. I got an estimate of what getting another five to eight years cost in medical technology, and it came at quite a price indeed. Yet, somehow, I'm reluctant to leap into a rush of activities as so many do when brushed by the shadow of death. It seems to me to be a false affirmation of life to fill it with activities as the only source of meaning, as though doing something was the same as being someone.

I've shared the whirl of things that have filled a few of my weeks in this blog, many the mundane tasks of life with some triumphant and tragic moments from my gardening and crafting. I'm wondering what all those activities mean in the long run. Were they worth what it cost to pay for the first pacemaker? I could literally estimate what each heartbeat cost if I totaled my medical bills and divided them among the estimated number of heartbeats for eight years. It's like a stream of pennies sliding through my fingers and dissolving into the past.

How many of those pennies were bright with hope and profit? How many were tarnished with waste and loss? It seems as though I ought to have some sort of profound philosophical insight about it, but the subject is as tender as the shoulder now healing over the new pacemaker.

The first operation was terrifying enough as my natural pacemaker system failed and a surgeon rushed to implant my first pacemaker to keep my heart going with its artificial rhythm, but I soon grew accustomed to having the device sparking each new heartbeat in its programmed pattern. This operation did not go as smoothly as the first. I had a reaction to something during the procedure and woke up struggling for breath and shaking uncontrollably. The surgeon was putting in the last stitches and telling me not to move that arm, the sharp prick of the needle pulling my skin together over the device that would keep me alive a few years longer. The reaction continued for quite a while as I was wheeled back to my room to recover, slowly fading into exhausted rest.

The first part of this essay was written before the operation. I was feeling too overwhelmed with the tragedy of the events unfolding in the ravaged parts of the world and the sudden sickness of the cat close to home and my heart just as I was facing this operation to finish it then. I'm sure of my salvation and eternal life, but it still isn't easy to cope with so many reminders of life's precarious existence at once. My complacency has been decidedly shaken, that much I'm sure about as well.

I look at the parents grieving over lost children, and I wish I could tell them that their little ones are safe with God. It is the parents who are still in danger. This world is coming apart just as predicted for the time just before Jesus returns. Nonbelievers scoff at that even as they cry out against a God Whom they blame for the catastrophes.

I know the fear I felt over the cat when he suddenly ran a fever for no apparent reason, and I watched my mother nervously waiting as I was taken for my operation and how nervous she was for some time later until I was home and clearly on the mend. It is so hard to convince nonbelievers that God is watching over everyone with the same loving concern and grief over the endless stream of needless deaths.

It isn't just the deaths in mass tragedies that catch His notice. Death was never supposed to be a part of human existence. For those who will reach out to Him in belief in His Son Jesus and His payment for their sins, death becomes only a transition in a continuing life with God. For those who are still disconnected from Him because of their sins, death is a transition in a continuing life without God.

In either case, life will go on beyond the end of the mortal body. God is reaching out to gather in anyone who will come to Him for salvation, but the time is growing short and the warning signs of Jesus Christ's soon return are becoming ever stronger. In the end, it is still human choice that will determine whether an individual will be saved or lost, because God will not force that choice on anyone either way.