Removed yet not exempt

A tornado touched down in the city where my sister and her family live. And I don't really like that one bit.

We have been talking in my British Literature class about suffering, and how far removed we are from it ... until it affects us personally. We have come to the conclusion that this is the way it must be, or we would be in constant grief over the death or suffering of someone. We must find a way to distance ourselves from pain, so that when it does affect us ... it can reach us. We have been talking about natural disasters and wars, and how we feel for those affected, but then our day continues. We see the commercial of the starving African children, and then the channel changes. Does that mean that we have a callused heart? I think not ... it just means we are protecting our heart.

I've been storm tracking, seeing the abundance of tornado touch downs in the south lately, and I've been more interested than ever before. Until this year, tornados were something that belonged in movies, in "Twister" or "Wizzard of Oz." Now I read of them and know that real people are affected. And then today. Today the tornado touched down in Madison County, right where my sister lives.

I was there about a month ago, visiting. Alabama, its a real place. There are real, breathing people there. And of those people, my sister, and her husband - away on his base, and my four neices and nephews that are so dear to my heart I barely believe that I can love my own children someday more. When I was there it rained, non-stop, not an Oregon rain, but a scary rain .... a rain that howls. In a sermon on Sunday, the Pastor said he believed the sound of howling wind is the closest thing we can understand to the groanings that the scriptures talks about. I think about that little apartment where my sister is, and of the earth groaning around her. And I want to be there.

I remember being a little girl and running to the arms of my sister when I was scared. It didn't happen very often, but it did happen. She was my comfort. I remember being so young, and having croup, and she rocked me on the front porch. When I was in Alabama last month, we found ourselves at the windows, night after night at 2 am, watching the lightening bolts and listening to the thunder crack and whip. And it was comforting that my sister was there.

One of the articles reporting on the storm in the south quoted a man saying that tornados were something he expected to happen in Arkansas, not MIsssissippi. I scofffed ... but cought myself, I do the same thing. We always expect it to happen to someone else, not to me, I'm exempt. Well, this tornado may be 2000 miles away, but it hits very close to home. I am not exempt.

I know that these events could scare me. The enemy would love to terrify my heart into believing that a natural disaster is creeping at the door of my life. And you know what? Maybe it is. Mt. Hood could blow up tonight, and I would be covered in ash. But I am not going to fear disaster. I am not going to fear fear. I serve a good God. A very good God indeed. And he has said that he has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and sound mind.