Distrustful

April 13, 2020

It’s Easter Sunday under the strangest conditions. We’re quarantined during a pandemic with no end in sight and, more urgently, there’s a storm producing strong, prolonged tornados crossing the state of Alabama from this afternoon until the early hours of tomorrow morning.

I’m sitting on the bench of a window seat my dad built me in the newly remodeled room. I’ve recently moved into my parent’s house. I’m…afraid. I hate severe weather and am terribly scared of tornados. When I was thirteen, my house was destroyed by a tornado while my family and I were still inside. That day was not unlike today. It was a Sunday, we had stayed home from church, I was still in my pajamas during the midafternoon when the tornado hit. I remember sitting in my room, texting my friend on my T9, flip cell phone when my dad knocked on the door and told me to join my mom and brother in the master bathroom.  He’d been watching the weather and we were officially under a tornado warning, not just a watch. We piled my parents’ bathroom full of pillows and blankets. I realized after we were hunkered down that I’d dropped my teddy bear right outside the bathroom door. My parents protested, but I darted out and quickly snatched the teddy bear to my chest. My dad kept the bathroom door open so he could hear the weather on the TV in my parent’s bedroom. Twenty minutes into our shelter in place, the power went out. My dad closed the door, grabbed the dead weather radio, and tried to calm me down. I had been in the bathtub and moved to join my parents and brother on the floor. At the pop of my ears and the sound of a train whistle, my mom grabbed me and threw me on top of my brother where she climbed on top of us and my dad covered us all with his body. My dad didn’t have time to get through one “God, please protect us,” before the ground stopped shaking, the freight train sound passed and I thought to worry about the wall-to-wall, counter-to-ceiling mirror right above our heads. My dad slowly got up, opened the bathroom door, and walked out into their bedroom. I went to the door and was about to follow when I smelled Christmas trees. My foot in the air, about to step into the bedroom, my dad forcefully told me to stop. The glass from the nearby window had blown out and he was cautioning me to stay where I was until he could find my mom, brother, and I shoes. I turned back into the bathroom looked at my mom and started to cry. I grabbed my teddy bear, that had I not pulled into the bathroom would be where the shattered glass was resting now.

We packed what we could to stay the night…somewhere else. The worst of the damage was on the back half of the house and the backyard. My room, my brother’s room, were the only ones untouched. The tree in the front yard had the metal from someone’s carport wrapped around it. The backyard no longer held a trampoline, the two cars parked behind our house were ruined. Looking across the back yard where a fence once stood, only four walls around a bathroom stood where the house behind us once did. We packed and I changed out of pj’s. We were warned not to sit on furniture because insulation had rained down and nowhere was safe. The day, that earlier had been so gray and gloomy, now shined bright and calm. We’d later learn it was an EF3 tornado. 

When the sun was setting, we grabbed our bags and started walking through the neighborhood. A family friend had driven as far in the neighborhood as the destruction would allow. It was surreal. Walking down the middle of the street, navigating around debris, seeing strong police and emergency relief presence marching where I had not a few months ago learned how to walk in wedge heels for the first time. I remember being solemn. I remember walking silently. Our family friend drove us to the motel by the interstate resting at the main exit into our town. Another family friend brought us McDonald’s. It was the first time I remember eating a McDonalds Apple Pie. They brought us one of everything they thought we might like and it was too much food, but I ate. I ate and texted friends to say I was alright. I slept that night clutching my teddy bear, and cried.

I didn’t know then that it would be the first night of two months living in that motel. My dad rebuilt our house with the insurance money, as he was in construction at the time. They got the cars replaced, my grandfather came down from Massachusetts to help with the roofing. We got the second adjoining room when he came. We were on the second of two floors. I was still allowed to participate in the Science Olympiad tournament the next weekend and my partner and I won gold in the waves division.

About a week into living at the motel, severe weather struck again. The fear was intense.

A couple of years later, when I was in high school, my family of four was living in a 26-foot-long travel trailer in a trailer park. Severe weather was going to hit. I was home alone. I grabbed my teddy bear; I was scared.

Later, in college, freshman year, there was a tornado warning. The City of Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama had been hit hard about five years before. People had died. They took tornado warnings seriously. I was in my dorm at the time with a friend when we were brought down to the first-floor hallway by the RAs for safety. I wished for my teddy bear. I was scared.

Last year in DC on a rare sick day, I was lying in bed, watching Netflix when the sky outside my window turned dark and at the same time the tornado sirens went off. I grabbed my teddy bear, ran to the bathroom, dove in the tub, and called my dad. My dad stayed on the phone with me for 30 minutes until the weather passed. I was scared.

Tonight I’m scared once again.   

I’m trying not to repeat the past. I showered and changed out of pjs. I put on my shoes and socks, packed my purse, and grabbed my checkbook and emergency cash. I charged my phone to full capacity. I’ve got a water bottle in my purse and the keys to my safe on me. I’m trying not to repeat the past. I want it to be different this time.

I’ve felt this fear. It’s the paralyzing grip of fear in the center of my chest that reminds me of death. I know how fragile life is. More than I have any right to at my age for more reasons than one. This feeling is the unwelcome houseguest that shows up at the worst times which I can never manage to shake.

I’ve felt it at the edges all day. I’m so tired of being scared, I want it to go away. 

I’m talking with my family about the weather, asking where we plan to shelter and what we plan to do. I ask if they think a storm will hit, based on the weather. My brother makes a joke that one better not fall on the house my parents just spent three years rebuilding. My dad’s trying to reassure me and says that “God-willing one won’t” and that he doesn’t think God would do that to him, have a tornado hit the house he just spent 3 years and probably $50,000 into fixing. I can’t explain the anger that hits.

I counter that He would do that. As the person who’s had brain surgery, then chemical meningitis, then a rib removed, then hyperventilation-induced syncope, then legs that didn’t work, then a tumor, then arthritis in my neck all within five years and before I’ve had a boyfriend, God would definitely do just that.

They’re quiet and don’t say anything to my outburst. Then my dad just says we’ll pray and we’ll take precautions.

I do pray, but my heart isn’t in it. I don’t trust God won’t send a tornado to hit my house tonight. I don’t trust that he’ll spare my family. I don’t trust that I won’t be walking to a hotel room tonight holding my belongings waiting for someone to bring McDonald’s while I will clutch my teddy bear and cry. The hotel will be different, the McDonalds will taste the same, and while I’ll be twelve years older, I’ll still hold that teddy bear and I’ll still cry.

I don’t trust that God won’t allow a tornado to rip apart my life once again, while I’m dealing with a pandemic and coordinating city-wide efforts. I don’t trust God won’t press me until I collapse. I don’t trust He won’t.

I trust that whatever God does will be for my good and for His glory, that I’ll be with Him in Heaven for eternity. But I do not trust that my good and His glory look the same to us both while I’m on this side of heaven.

David was chased through the wilderness countless times, spending years in discomfort. Daniel lived in captivity for years, in discomfort. Joseph lived in jail for years, in discomfort. Job lost his family, everything he was and had, and was left in discomfort. All of these and countless more across the Bible were tragedies, pain, discomfort, and were for their good and for God’s glory.

My prayer sounds like, “God, please. Spare my family, keep us safe. Keep this house standing and whole. Let my parents and brother be unharmed. Please. Let this storm miss us or die down completely. Let us sleep peacefully and wake to see the morning whole and unscathed. Please.” But then as I’m praying my mind adds, “but you’ll take them all away if it will be for my good and for Your glory. You’ll take my home, you’ll take my family, you’ll take my life.”

I’m so incredibly heavy with the knowledge of the cost to follow you, God. I’ve seen the cost up close countless times, over and over again, that it’s become tangible. Life-threatening is not an abstract concept to me. It’s become very real.

There was a time when I would see a storm like this and my trust would be that God would keep me safe. I’d pray that and there would be no voice countering my words. I’d go back to what had my thoughts before. That’s what’s changed. I no longer look at a storm like this and trust that I will remain physically unharmed and emotionally safe. I look at a storm like this and I know God’s power. I know God can easily stop the storm, or direct it, or allow it. I know God can hear my prayers for safety, allow me to be unsafe, and say, “I love you, and it’s for your good and for my glory, trust me, one day you’ll look back and understand, but it might not be until you’re here with me.” And that’s terrifying. I can’t comprehend the complexity that can inflict or allow pain and suffering yet love immensely, both, and more, occurring simultaneously in equal measure. It’s far above my understanding.

It’s comforting to know my trust is accurate. I have no doubt that I can fully trust God to operate in a way that’s for my good and for His glory. I cannot trust God will keep me safe. I cannot trust that I’ll understand. I cannot trust I won’t be heartbroken and weary. I can trust that one day I’ll be in heaven. I can trust that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and is in control. I can trust that come what may, it will be for my good and for God’s glory.

But that doesn’t make me feel any better now. Because I know what life-threatening is like and I don’t want to be there tonight.

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