I can feel my heart sitting at the bottom of my chest and it's been there all week. I'm quite sure that it's physically impossible for this life-sustaining organ to fall victim to sadness in this way, but if ever there were a time for it to start doing so, it would be now. Most of you have experienced this weight of deep emotion at some point in your life, probably in moments of significant personal loss. Thankfully, I haven't lost a thing, but unfortunately I can't say the same for thousands of others in and around Nashville, my home.
It's day 5 of what has become known as the 1,000 Year Flood, a natural disaster so unlikely that it only "comes around" every 1,000 years or so. Saturday morning, we awoke to severe thunderstorms, torrential rains and winds so strong they were producing tornadoes in some areas. Typically, it passes through and we're no worse off than the day before, but this storm was different. My roommate and I sat in our apartment, stranded, glued to Channel 4 news for two days watching as storm cells lined up one after the other ready to take a ride through Tennessee. Within 48 hours, half of Nashville was under anywhere from a foot to 8+ feet of water and it had claimed the lives of 29 people between Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky.
I've never experienced devastation like this before, but I've also never had the opportunity to be a part of a community that rallies around one another in love when the rest of the world is slow to catch on. Monday morning, I joined my CrossPoint church family to be sent out to homes in the area that had been less fortunate than I had. It's hard to explain the overwhelming emotions that poured into my heart that day, all I can offer are verbal representations of the snapshots in my mind. The roads that had turned into rivers, cars submerged to the roof, soccer fields that looked like lakes were all shocking. However, the moments that have been replaying in my head like a broken record are those of husbands holding their weeping wives, rescue workers helping families out of the boat that just saved them from their drowning homes, and sifting through the water-logged, mud-caked memories of people's past. Front yards have turned into open dumpsters full of furniture, dry wall and trash bags of ruined clothes. Police officers are stationed at every corner with yellow crime scene tape strewn from trees and stop signs, making the quaint southern neighborhoods look like war zones. You'd think after the third day of volunteering, these sights would be easier to swallow, but I have yet to stop the tears.
In times like these, it's near impossible to see the silver lining amidst the questions, fears and hopelessness overtaking a city caught off guard. Frustration can be intoxicating and often fuels the fire of bitterness and self-pity. In the words of singer/songwriter, Phil Wickham, "all you're left with is a tired and broken heart." Monday morning, as the waters slowly began to recede, I imagine these were the sentiments of many families and individuals standing outside their destroyed homes wondering, "What now?"
There's no simple, straight-forward answer as to why God allows these things to happen and I'm afraid we'll never understand how he works. But what if we needed to be stripped of everything in order to re-focus on one thing? What if through crisis, God was building our character? The past few weeks at CrossPoint, Pastor Pete has been leading us through a series called Shattered Dreams, which oddly enough resonates so deeply with our situation and honestly reassures my trust in God's perfect timing. Two weeks ago, we read the story of the death of Lazarus in John 11. Lazarus is deathly ill, so Mary and Martha call on the Lord to heal him because they know of his power. Yet,
"When he heard this, Jesus said, 'This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified through it.' Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days."
Lazarus dies while they were waiting on the Lord and everyone is left wondering why, if he loves us, would he allow this to happen? The story goes on and tells us of Martha's doubt, not in his power but in his timing. She knew that if Jesus had been there, he could have saved her brother. Yet, after all of this, in what would have been her time of mourning, she was able to say, "But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask." She still had faith, she still trusted, she remained hopeful. Because of this, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. This is the state of mind that the people of Nashville are in today. We still have faith, we are still trusting, we are still hopeful, because we believe in a God who has promised to lift us up in our times of need and hold onto us through the storm. Though my time here has been short in comparison to most, I know without a shadow of a doubt that this community will rise above any expectations and come out stronger for it.
"God will allow suffering, pain, and crisis in order to detach HOPE from other things and attach it to himself." -Pete Wilson
Over the past few days, thousands of people have dropped everything and put their unaffected lives on hold to pick up the leftover pieces of our loved ones, neighbors, and strangers who were victims of the flood. Despite the fact that we've had a severe lack of national media coverage, our city has been able to come together in a powerful way to instill a small reminder that God is not absent from this disaster. Though he is in the suffering, the pain and loss, he is also our source of hope and recovery. It's hard to say how long it will take or if things will get back to normal, but maybe that was the plan all along.
***Nashville is in need of your donations. CrossPoint Church has set up a flood relief fund, go to www.crosspoint.tv to help today!
