What a month or so it has been. I’m
finding this particular period of time difficult to describe because it’s been
such a blend of extremes. Lately, we’ve seen temples in Thailand, taken tuk tuk
rides through rural Cambodia, admired red cliffs and turquoise water along Australia’s
Great Ocean Road, and soaked up the pastoral perfection of New Zealand. But enormous,
chaotic chasms have cut in and between these mountaintop-type experiences. Let’s
start with the hurricane.
One week before we were due Down
Under our governor issued a mandatory evacuation order due to the threat of
Hurricane Matthew making landfall. We spent five days at my in-laws’ home in
North Carolina along with Taylor’s parents, my parents, my brother-in-law, and
two dogs. We lost power after three of those days and spent our remaining time
together avoiding cold showers, preparing food using alternative methods, playing
games by candlelight, and preparing ourselves for the fact that the family trip
to Australia we had booked six months prior might not be happening. When we
returned home we found that Hilton Head Island was standing, but it was also stripped
and changed. The 48 hours before our non-refundable departure were spent with chainsaws,
blowers, and rakes in hand as we dug ourselves and a few neighbors out of the
debris piled on our homes. We removed a massive fallen limb from our roof,
covered the fractured skylight in our kitchen with a tarp, threw some clothes
in a carry-on and did our best to mentally prepare to leave the United States. Hurricane
Matthew caused millions of dollars of damage to Hilton Head, and debris removal
in our neighborhood alone is expected to stretch well into 2017.
Chaos.
And then there’s the election.
Taylor and I watched the results roll in from a hotel room in Te Anau. From the
television to my Twitter feed, first came shock, then came anger and accusations
and finger-pointing and shaming and caustic headlines and countless expressions
of hopelessness. The next day, while on a beautiful walk through a green, green
forest that spilled out onto a blue, blue lake surrounded by tall, tall
mountains, I cried. For the division, for the lack of understanding, for the readiness
to talk and the inability to listen, for the fact that no matter whose name had
been announced I would have been left with the same lack of confidence and
trust in our leadership I was then experiencing. These feel like especially dark
times, don’t they? And yet we are not the only country whose streets are
currently filled with protestors. As I type, thousands of men and women are marching
in South Korea and calling for the resignation of their president amid
accusations of corruption.
Chaos.
Now for the present. Around 12:30
this morning our Christchurch hotel room began to shake and creak and sway. I
woke up out of a dead sleep thinking that we were on a cruise ship and that the
waves outside of our window must be huge. In reality, we were experiencing a
magnitude 7.5 earthquake along with the rest of New Zealand. Once we were both
conscious of our actual surroundings, Taylor called the front desk of our hotel
and asked what to do. They answered on the first ring, said “Stay in the room”
and immediately hung up. The screech of some kind of metal-on-metal scraping – maybe
the building’s newly renovated infrastructure, swaying with the movement of the
earth – continued in our room, and I looked up at the ceiling and wondered if
it was going to fall on me and if I would be crushed, or if I would survive it
and be pulled out of the rubble like the people who had survived the
devastation of the 2011 quake in Christchurch that made headlines across the
world; the one the city is still recovering from. Once the shaking stopped we
got dressed and walked down the stairwell and into the lobby. Most of the other
guests were already there, circled up in groups and taking turns describing
what it felt like. Someone at the front desk said that we could go back to our
rooms and that there wouldn’t be any aftershocks, but he was wrong. We experienced
several while still in the lobby, one strong enough to send a large portion of
the lobby contingent running out of the doors and into the streets.
Chaos.
Following the scare of the biggest
aftershock, the general manager and several employees put on yellow vests and
announced that tea and coffee would be served. A tsunami warning had been
issued but they felt confident in the combination of our hotel’s downtown location
and 30 million dollar renovation; there was no need to leave and, again, we really
could go back to our rooms and try to get some sleep as soon as we felt
comfortable doing so. Around 2 a.m. Taylor and I decided against evacuation and
did just that. We took the hotel staff at their word because they are the
experts; the ones who endured the 2011 earthquake and came out stronger on the other
side. We left the United States a month ago in the wake of one natural disaster
and we are leaving New Zealand today less than 24 hours after another. For the
first time ever I am able to literally say that our world has been shaken.
And now I write. I am sitting at
the airport, waiting to board a plane and wade back into the waters of post-hurricane
Hilton Head and post-election America, and I write because it’s the best way I
know how to process it all. The one-two-three punch of the last month has left
me with much to consider, and strangely enough, I haven’t felt a peace about any
of it until last night – the moment I realized that the roof of a Christchurch
hotel might very well crush me in bed.
It was an impression in that
moment, but this afternoon it is more well-defined: from the hurricane, to the
division, to the earthquake – in all of the current chaos – I see and I feel and
I believe that everything on and under the earth is groaning in expectation of
and longing for the return of Christ.
For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when
God will reveal who his children really are. Against its
will, all creation was subjected to God’s curse. But with eager hope, the creation
looks forward to the day when it will join God’s children in glorious freedom
from death and decay. For we know that
all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time. (see Romans 8:19-24, NLT)
I have so fervently
clung to the illusion that I have control over this life of mine. I think last
night’s earthquake may have finally been the death of that. You see, we were
given a week’s notice to evacuate before Hurricane Matthew made landfall. If I
couldn’t control the election results, I could at least exercise my right to
vote and feel as though I had some small say in the final decision. But you
cannot predict an earthquake. You can simply endure it once it strikes. I have
never felt so helpless before, and at the same time, I have never felt so
completely wrapped in the “peace that surpasses understanding” (Philippians
4:7). Last night I realized that no matter my end – if I was truly going to be
crushed in my bed that very night, or if Christ’s return will happen within my
lifetime, or if I’m destined to meet Him in another 70 years or so – I am safe
and held and secure in the Father’s love, and in His plans for me and the world
that He created.
Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it
mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted,
or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? (As
the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being
slaughtered like sheep.”) No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is
ours through Christ, who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever
separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers
of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the
earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us
from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39,
NLT)
Before leaving
for this trip I had really hoped that New Zealand would be perfect. Like
apparently every other American, over the last few months I had been tossing
around the idea of packing my bags and running away to another country if
things got too bad at home. I wanted New Zealand to be that beautiful island of
refuge that Taylor and I could escape to, maybe permanently, if America and the
rest of the world began to sink. But even before last night’s earthquake I had
already realized the truth – there is no heaven on earth. There is beauty here,
but there is no place I can run to where sadness, sorrow, and sickness of heart
and mind and soul and body cannot touch me. And so I have two choices: to fight
to regain my semblance of control and obsess over the darkness and the muck and
the mire, or to choose to remain in the rest and peace I felt last night – the
one that enabled me to actually fall back asleep as the aftershocks of an
earthquake continued to shake the walls around me.
