Blown Away
Hereby perceive we the love of God,
because he laid down his life for
us:
and we ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren.
But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother have need,
and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him,
how dwelleth the love of God in him?
My little children,
let us not love in word,
neither in tongue;
but in deed and in truth.
-- 1 John 3:16-18
My friend's sister survived a tornado that devastated a
small town in Iowa earlier this summer. They say it looks like a gigantic
weedeater took out nearly half of the town. The 200 mph winds caused eight
deaths and $160 million in insurance claims.
Her husband was not at home, but her best friend was there
with a couple of children. They crouched down in an area of the basement that
the cat slept in. The tornado roared upon them - and literally scooped the
house and all its contents up and away.
Photo of a similar
storm taken at about the same time
by Lori Mehmen of
Orchard, Iowa, shows a mesocyclone with a wall cloud.
To everyone's horror, the homeowner's young daughter started
rising up, sucked into the vortex. Screaming, the mom jumped to her feet and
grabbed the girl by her hips, pulling her back down. The eye of the tornado was
then upon them, giving them a moment to grab onto a pipe, and then the back end
of the twister roared by.
When it was over, they just kept huddling, whimpering, for a
few minutes, and then got up and looked around.
Not a stick was left of the house.
The boat was gone. The jet-ski was gone.
They never found any of their furniture, and what they did
find was mostly ruined.
But praise God! No one was hurt.
And it wasn't too long before people they didn't even know
started coming around. These volunteers just appeared, giving them food and
water and material goods to tide them over until they could get back on their
feet.
The family couldn't get over how kind these strangers were,
and how eager they were to help with the cleanup. Some of them were college
students and church youth group members who had headed out just as soon as they
heard about the tornado. They knew their help would be needed. These volunteers
literally would have given them the shirts off their backs.
Which would have been nice, since the family didn't have any
clothes now. They didn't have any anything.
And worst of all, without a house, where would they live?
In the days after the tornado, the mom had been on TV a
couple of times, detailing the ordeal, and her gratitude for all the help shone
through. However, the fact that the family was now homeless also was clear.
Then boom! They got a call from a doctor who lived a few
miles away. He had seen the TV report, and he wanted to make them an incredibly
nice offer:
Would they like to live in his house, rent-free, for a year?
It turns out that the doctor and his wife were going through
a divorce - devastation of another kind. Neither wanted to live in the house
any more: too many memories. But it was a bad real-estate market, so they
didn't want to sell it. It was just going to sit empty.
Why not share it with this devastated family?
Why not create something good in a situation that was so
bad, for both families?
It's a gorgeous home. The family joke is that the tornado
victims were "blown away" by this kindness, and accepted gratefully on the
spot. It had to feel good to that hurting couple, too.
You know, God hates divorce (Malachi 2:16) because of how it
hurts. But He loves generosity in all its forms, because of its sweet and
refreshing healing. Both couples experienced it, for their mutual good.
What a lesson for us all. In the aftermath of disaster,
peace comes through the gifts of others. If you want to operate straight out of
God's heart, you'll look around and see who needs help, and how you can deliver
it.
We all go through many storms in life. The best way through
them is to put one hand in God's . . . and give your other hand in friendship
and service to someone else. †
