Three More Days!

I'm getting close! Just three more days, and then I'm heading West to begin my next life adventure. Unless this hurricane that's wracking the Bahamas right now comes up the coast and runs me out of town early. On top of the earthquake yesterday, we East Coasters sure are getting our share of natural disasters here lately.

About a week ago, there was a thunderstorm, and as I often like to do when I see those dark, terrorizing cumulonimbus clouds approaching I went out onto our deck to watch until rain forced me back inside. The wind began to pick up, and a sudden gust gave me a split second of thrilling terror, as if it was going to suck me up into the sky. In wasn't even that strong, but in that moment I felt a total helplessness and wondered if perhaps that is how the people in the Midwest felt when tornadoes ripped through their homes this summer, or how the people in Japan felt when they saw the wall of water rush ashore with no regard to anyone or anything in its path, or those in Haiti as the earth shook and brought down buildings like a deck of cards. I can only imagine that their terror was at least a hundred times stronger than mine. It's pretty crazy how these things just come up on us, and how with all our technology and knowledge we're utterly helpless in the midst of them.

It reminds me that my God is so much bigger, stronger, more fearsome than I in my humanity can fathom. God is love, yes. And God is also to be feared, not in the I'm-scared-of-the-dark sense, but a holy fear. A recognition that He set this entire universe in motion, commands its forces to operate, and can wipe it out with but a word. (Which He will do someday soon, but then He will remake it the way He originally meant it to be, free from the bondage to darkness and sin!)


I just flipped to Psalm 50, and boy did it convict me! If "a fire devours before him, and around him a tempest rages" doesn't sound like a hurricane or a tornado, I don't know what does. Then it goes through a list of wrongs done by the wicked. After sharing some not-so-kind words with my sister tonight, verse 20 is a good slap on my hand. When I consider my insignificance in the face of God's holiness I sure could be snapped in two like a wooden post in a tornado.

I suppose it's a good thing I'm starting to think about facing the wrath of God in nature, considering I'm going to live in the most earthquake-prone part of North America. Not that I'm looking forward to experiencing one.

Speaking of moving to California, I just started packing today. I'm a bit of a procrastinator... no let me restate that... I'm a HUGE procrastinator and rather laid-back about time. I wasn't always this way. Maybe some of it rubbed off on me during trips overseas in non-time-oriented cultures. More likely it came from just resigning myself to never getting ahead with all my college work. I suddenly noticed the change about halfway through college. It got really bad senior year when most of my professors decided to go paperless and have us turn in assignments online. The bad thing about that is you don't have to get it done before you go to class; you can work up to the minute before the deadline. I literally turned something in 30 seconds before it was due last semester. As great as technology is, it often seems to make my life more complicated... like the new webcam I just bought for my laptop which won't work until I install more memory. Anyway, I hope maybe now that I don't have all those school assignments I won't be quite as bad about being last-minute in life. Eh. I'd like to believe it'll happen.