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Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Sometimes Why Isn't Necessary

This time one year ago I was standing in a parking lot waiting for "orders." We were going, a whole crew of CPers and I, to work on a disaster site in Arkansas after the tornadoes. Once we got there it would begin to drizzle like it is now. But we'd keep working anyway, at certain points barely even noticing. While the cars had been full of chattering, excited kids enjoying spending time with each other in person instead of being forced to have screens between them, there was a hush once we got there. For some of us, it was the first time we'd ever seen something like this - piles of remnants of what used to be happy lives. We passed devastation after devastation, only piles of garbage to mark where families used to live.

Here and there a camper, or a rare undemolished house stood. An old lady and a teenage girl came out of one and talked to a few of us girls. They thanked us for coming and the tears started pooling in my eyes. It felt more of an honor to be there than a job. They took it all in stride this mess all around them. Like Whitney seemed to be doing. I remember thinking how brave she was for coming with us and helping clean up someone's else's home after doing her own. I wanted to tell her but I wasn't sure how to say what I was feeling... I think I eventually said something and hugged her. Hugs were about all I wanted at that point - some form of human touch reassuring me that we were alive in a world that seemed all dead. Words seemed kinda useless there. They just hung in the thick foggy air and sounded awkward.

After a while, they offered us lunch and we had to eat it. Well, I personally didn't. For once food allergies were a blessing. No one really seemed to want to eat what with the stench and the sadness and the piles of ruined lives on every side.

It was sometime after lunch when the rain was drizzling in a relentless miserable manner that the strongest memory for me of that day happened. We'd been hacking at a trailer with only our hands and someone's knife and a borrowed ax if I remember correctly. Maybe we just needed to hack at something because our insides seemed to have gone numb. Or maybe it was just because a bunch of kids like to try demolishing things. I dunno. I do remember despite more logical heads saying otherwise, that some of us seemed to think so strongly that we could get it apart, it was almost a need to get it apart. It may sound weird. But I've experienced that feeling since. It's like the subconscious needs to accomplish some physical thing that has become a metaphor for something bigger.

Some of us girls seemed to have gained strength that from just looking at us seemed impossible. I pulled my hat which ironically said, "Life is Good" on it (a present from my dad and mom), and hoped no one could see my eyes in the rain. I felt the  need to work, need to pull and drag and hoist the heaviest items I could find and throw them as high as I could with a resounding thud on the constantly growing pile. That was one of the most satisfying sound ever. I glanced around and saw another girl beside me, working just as silently and determinedly. "So I'm not the only one this staring physical disaster in the face is new to," I thought. Looking at us maybe we appeared frantic but it lacked the feverishness of insanity. It was just a cold, determined, numbness. Besides, it was less emotionally challenging to lug pieces of housing material than picking up children's toys. After throwing a teddy bear and a doll on the dump I decided to avoid picking up any more if I could help it. It hurt too much to throw away something you knew had been dear to some little kid.

Compounded with being in an official disaster site for the first time and thinking about the Tittles, I was struggling with pushing flashbacks away from hurricanes. Katrina - being a little girl far away from home and having only the reassurance of newspaper pictures, aka no reassurance whatsoever, and hearing adults talk about dead bodies floating in the streets. Rita - facing the wind and beginning of the rain to pull things in and secure them, tying down roses to their stake as though somehow that was going to help, and praying that little frog I found hiding in a rose petal would make it. Gustav - the hurricane that actually hit my town as a 3, bringing multiple tornadoes down our street alone, one of which almost killed me. Gustav included the whole gamut of FEMA, our street blocked off due to damage, seeing neighbors almost die, etc. The memories of Gustav though also gave strength. I remembered being too young to help in the heat Mama said, so I watched from the one cool room my mother and father work with the neighbors cleaning up instead of waiting for federal aid. White and black, blue collar and white collar, from all walks of life working together.

As the hours rolled by, a question began nagging in the back of my mind and I imagine it was nagging in the back of a few others. Why were stuffed bears left in one piece but the house gone? It was rumored one of the little kids who had lived here had been injured. Why was the random piece of junk saved and her not? Why had this happened to good Christian people? Why all this destruction?

And then someone, either Hannah or Morgan, found a pretty much intact page from a book. Us girls huddled around her trying to read through the rain what it said. We had a strange fascination with who these people were who used to live here and now were rumored to live in the camper a few yards away. It was a page from a children's book Hannah deciphered. We leaned closer. It was strangely pretty preserved. It was a dim, water-stained yellow and only the edges crumbled in her hand. The dirt streaks didn't make what was left of the page unreadable. I wondered if since it was so well preserved if God had something to say to us.

Hannah read us the whole that was left intact. It was the story of John the Baptist in prison. He asked why he hadn't been delivered. And Jesus answered him but not the way he was expecting or wanted. We all knew how it ended even though the ending had been lost on a different page.

We went back to work. But somehow I was different. I kept repeating the story to whoever had the luck of throwing stuff on the pile at the same time I did. Thankfully, CPers are some of the nicest people ever so they didn't roll their eyes at me. It was as though I had to keep saying it because I needed to hear it again and again.

I realized how ridiculous it was to ask why. I was ashamed of my questioning and unbelief. Even if we didn't understand, it didn't matter. All good things work together for good to those who are called according to His purpose. God knows. That is enough. We don't have to know why. We just need to know He's in charge. That He's got this. He's got us. He won't let go.

That is enough.

That lesson has gone on with me long after I showered off the grime and my muscles stopped being sore. It got me through a summer that tested everything I was made of. It's come back to me now after a spring of pain I hope to never repeat.

My hope is in the Lord. My God is strong and mighty. My God is faithful. My God is able. 
Even when I feel the light is fading and I've lost my way...
I hold on... there is strength holding on to the One Who is able. - "All Things Possible"

I miss you. All of you who were there in Arkansas. I hope your lives are beautifully blessed. That time, that oh so too brief time, is one of the highlights of my life so far. It was a blessing to work beside you, cry beside you, play beside you. Oh, and hey, girls still win at dodge ball. :P And yes, being locked in a car with 3 boys is just as scary as you said it would be. But Mrs. Brown made it safe, so I was only somewhat "corrupted." Mrs. Christian is awesome and amazing and without her I would have never been able to go. Tittle Family you're in my heart and prayers. You're amazing! The way you've gone on and grown, your strength and kindness are a continual source of inspiration.

'Til next time my friends wherever and whenever that is.