This is a day to gather those you love around you and be thankful.

We can be thankful that the evil afflicted upon the city of Boston two days ago caused more injury than death, but that means there are hundreds of people lying in pain today – some looking to a future without an arm or a leg. All because they came — some from long distances – to celebrate someone’s accomplishment. I say let the celebration continue. It was worth it if good can triumph over this.

Have you ever been caught in a traffic jam on a road you didn’t need to be on? There’s nothing more frustrating. You made a wrong turn, but to get back to where you were you find yourself stuck in a crowd of people going somewhere you don’t even want to go.

I imagine there are people in hospitals in Boston who traveled a great distance to be standing right next to a bomb going off in a place they didn’t belong. Like they had an appointment with terror. Yet terror doesn’t have to win. It’s up to us what we do with our appointments. Good will always triumph over evil if we choose it.

Pain is not necessarily a bad thing. Pain can also be a doorway to something deeper. Some people will curse God in their pain; others will find Him. Finding Him is part of how good triumphs.

Know that Jesus has an ear out for your pain. I just read this morning in the Gospel of Luke (18:35-43) how a blind beggar called out for Jesus to have mercy on him as He passed by in a crowd. The people tried to hush the man but he only cried louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” That caused Jesus to stop and have the man brought to Him.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked.

“I want to see,” was his reply.

Something about that reply moves me. It’s simple, direct and impossible. Yet given that he was standing right in front of the power of God, why wouldn’t he ask it? So Jesus healed him and said it was because of his faith.

Think about it: that man was blind all his life so that Jesus might pass by and not miss him. He had an appointment, too — an appointment with Jesus. Was that worth it? The man has been dead and gone for two thousand years, yet his story lives on. Imagine how many people have been affected by this story, and how many are yet to hear about it. That is good triumphing over evil.

Pray that those lying in pain today have similar appointments. That’s turning an appointment with terror into an appointment with Jesus. May it be so.