"God was not in the tornado, but in our response."
So says an inscription in front of an East Nashville church that was in the path of a 1998 tornado that ripped through that part of town. I've always liked that quote, but I can't say I've ever fully understood it until now.
I have faith in God despite this storm, but I now have faith in humanity because of it.
We've gotten help from so many places. People I don't even know were at my house helping to clean out my basement yesterday. We've been offered more fresh water and fans in the last 36 hours than we can use. A contractor, after sitting in an hour of traffic on a road closed by flood waters, took an additional hour-long detour to get to our house to help pump our water out. And he gave us a below-market deal because we didn't have flood insurance. A neighbor three houses down from us lost a moving truck full of possessions-- thousands-upon-thousands of dollars of stuff-- but had the audacity to ask if they could do anything for us.
I want to repay this kindness. But I'm likely to do more harm than good with most any imaginable tool in my hands, so my opportunities are somewhat limited. I signed up with the organization that is managing the volunteer efforts (Hands on Nashville, www.hon.org), but it's almost impossible to find a spot that isn't taken already. I did finally manage to find an opening handing out bottled water on Sunday. I'll be thrilled to help with conservation efforts in the face of our water shortage and to help give someone else a "Plan B" if they suffer the same water outage issue we did.
One volunteer sign-up isn't much, I know. I hope to do more as opportunities present themselves. But I feel noticeably less stressed just in the five minutes since I signed up to be part of the recovery. Partly, it is empowering to feel like I have a stake in my adopted hometown's recovery. But I think the greater satisfaction is just in answering that voice that's been calling on me to do the right thing.
Apparently these are lessons that everyone else here in the Volunteer State already knows. I've never witnessed such a large collection of people offering services from which they get no tangible benefit just because a voice inside of them tells them they should. There is no Darwinian explanation for this, so I'm stuck believing that the same God who allows these tragedies to happen also inspires us to fix them and to love one another more along the way.
A couple days ago, I wrote about not being able to find God's hand in the flood. In the recovery effort, however, it's been unmistakable.
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I feel so encouraged reading this. It's awesome how God demonstrates his faithfulness in the midst of the most challenging things. So many times I've experienced his tangible presence in the small things while the storms (no flood related puns intended) raged around me. The certainty of his working actively on my behalf in the small (and seemingly unimportant) things has often given me the strength to believe he's been no less attentive or loving in the things that overwhelm.
ReplyDeleteAlso it makes me think of the more general responses people have toward disasters. When the whole pact with the devil thing (fiasco?) came out after Haiti I was ashamed of such a public "Christian" response. When I considered the matter further I came to the conclusion that regardless of the disaster or its cause the only acceptable Christian response is one of love. I guess that's not exactly the point you're trying to illustrate but I feel like it's a related sort of thing. May God bless you richly and give you surprising opportunities as you hand out water bottles on Sunday. :-)
Thanks Rebekah!
ReplyDeleteYou are right in that Christianity would look a lot better to the outside world if we focus our energy on loving the victims (which is what I've witnessed here) instead of blaiming them (like Robertson tends to do)!