I rarely watch the news.
I would watch it all the time if they showed happy stories.
But no. Sad. Almost all the time. You can’t watch the news and NOT hear multiple sad stories.
So I rarely watch. Who needs to hear more sad when they can drive down the street and see sadness with their own eyes?
But there are times when I watch the news, and watch it like a hawk.
When a global tragedy happens, when disaster strikes, my eyes can become glued to the tv.
I remember right where I was when 9/11 happened. I remember which couch I was sitting on, where my mom was standing, and how we all watched the news for HOURS as we watched replays of people running and buildings falling and hopeless people jumping to death. I remember how nothing else happened that day. We just sat and watched, prayed and shook our heads in horror.
Every year we sit on the same couches and watch the 9/11 memorial videos and shows. We won’t forget. We can’t.
I watched the news a lot, though I was only 9 years old. It was a devastating thing, but I wanted to watch, I needed to see for myself.
When Hurricane Katrina hit, I once again was glued to the television. This disaster was of a totally different kind. We weren’t being attacked, as a nation, by humankind. We were attacked by mother nature.
It hit close to home. I live in Florida, after all. We have hurricane after hurricane each summer and fall. We’ve gone North multiple times to escape hurricanes. I’ve packed a backpack with my most valuable belongings, looked around my room, and whispered goodbye…hoping badly that when we came back it would all still be standing. We’ve lost things in hurricanes, but nothing drastic to say the least. We’ve had trees fall and a swing set destroyed, but nothing like Katrina. Nothing like Katrina.
Then last year. Haiti. It’s been a little over a year and nothing has been done, yet much has been done. I look at the pictures and it all looks…the same. Nothing looks like it has been cleaned up or rebuilt, though I KNOW there are people there doing just that. But the nation was in such a bad shape (by that I mean the place…for example the cardboard houses built on the edge of mountains etc.) already that when disaster struck everything simply fell apart. It all crumbled so easily because it was already crumbling. The pictures were heartbreaking, the stories endless. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve taken the disasters differently. With Haiti I wanted to DO something. HELP somehow. But all I seemed to be able to do was look at picture after picture of hurting people, broken hearts, crumbled lives and buildings.
Japan. Now Japan.
It’s all over the news. It’s all the news can talk about, really. I woke up Friday and logged onto the computer before heading into work. I got on AOL and saw the headline and I’m pretty sure my first thought was, “Oh no…not again…”
Dread. Just…dread. Sadness. Horror. Questions.
“How do you rebuild?” “How can you come back from this?” “Two disasters in one…what are they supposed to do? Where are they supposed to go?” “What does the nuclear stuff have to do with anything? I don’t understand.”
Clearly I don’t have the answers. My dad tried to explain the nuclear stuff to me, but I still don’t totally get it. I just know it’s a good thing for power (electricity?) that can be really really bad if humans intake it…or something.
I don’t know all the answers. I do, however, know my God is the same today as He was Thursday evening before anything happened.
It sounds crazy. Silly. Stupid, even. How can a loving God let such an awful thing happen?
I know. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t all add up, and I don’t know that I’ll ever understand.
And truthfully? I’m glad I don’t get it.
I don’t want to believe in a God that I understand. That would make Him no longer a God. I don’t want to trust in Someone that makes sense all the time, or has nothing in His character or all He has done (or allowed) to make me wonder in His mystery.
I need the mystery. I love the mystery.
But I don’t love when this sort of thing happens. I HATE IT. But I love Him.
So I sit here wrestling as I look through picture after picture of a wrecked Japan.
“How are they supposed to rebuild, God? Where do you go from this? What next, God? What do they do next?”
I don’t want a God that I understand. I don’t. I know that for sure.
But 9/11, Katrina, Haiti, and now Japan….I don’t get it. All I can do is shake my head, cry my tears, and pray.
And wait for the day that I will once again no longer watch the news.
