I admit: I am a sucker for a happy ending.  I shed tears for the underdog in the Olympics.  I cry like a baby during happy endings in movies.  I sob during TV shows.  (I do.  Ask Kevin.)  I don’t like reading the news very much because, frankly, mostly times are only sad endings, bickering fights, people dying, children hurt, and the world at war.

I want my happy ending.

You can imagine then my tears of joy as the first of the 33 Chilean miners was brought above ground last night after 69 days trapped in the mine. His wife and his son were sobbing with happiness and I just bawled along with them, sharing their joy–if only a small part of it–and trying to imagine their grief and stress through the last 2 months, never knowing if they would see him alive again.

I stayed up late into the night riveted to the television like it was a drug and I an addict. When I fell asleep, I dreamt that I was watching the rescue on TV. I woke up and my first words were, “How many are out now?” All day I’ve had CNN up on my computer, watching the updates that scroll across my screen telling me that one more, one more, one more has reached the surface. With each one, my heart just gives a little skip because these are people; they may not be my people, my family, but they are someone’s people, someone’s family. They are strong, courageous men who have survived the unthinkable and are finally being rescued alive!  And to see their wives and children; those excited faces, those tears, those beautiful, creased worry lines fading into smiles so big you can see their molars…This is when I begin my crying all over again.  Every…single…time.

It’s the best of the best happy endings!  It’s the ultimate happy ending.

I am amazed by their faith as well. Not only are they coming out of the rescue capsule with smiles and thumbs up, hugs and tears, but they are coming out praising God for saving them, bringing them through this, and for life. And this doesn’t seem like just a thank-God-we’re-alive kind of praise. Mario Sepulveda said, “I was with God and I was with the devil. They fought, and God won.” He said he grabbed God’s hand and never doubted that he would be rescued.

That’s faith, people. That’s faith stronger than my own. That’s faith without wavering, without doubting.  It’s just pure, undiluted faith.

The youngest, 19-year-old Jimmy Sanchez, said in a letter that he had sent up earlier this week, “There are actually 34 of us because God has never left us down here. … God wanted me to stay here, I don’t know, maybe so I change from now on.”

Here I sit on my couch, mesmerized, astonished, amazed, challenged. This is history in our world, live history, and these are people; individuals, loved ones, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, sons…

And in a different language and a different country, they are challenging me to live with more faith, more of that undiluted, concentrated, black-as-coffee kind of faith.

Thank you, miners of Chile.  Welcome back to ground level.
 
*All names, quotes, and photos taken from http://www.cnn.com/.