Grace, A Year Later

Today is the anniversary of the most dramatic and galvanizing event in the history of our small city; it is Tornado Day.  Everyone here was impacted, some in ways unutterably horrific and some, like myself, with only inconvenience and irritation.

Only inconvenience is the answer I gave, and usually still give, when asked if the storm "got us".  The storm "got us" most significantly by allowing us and those we love to be bathed in grace. 

The storm took down a building where we (Hub) had a young man working, the son of my dearest friend.  For hours we thought he was gone.  For hours men dug with bare hands and back hoes.  One of them was the boy's father, thinking and feeling what can be known only to a father facing a gut-wrenching near certainty of unspeakable loss.  One was my Hub, fighting tears and time.  Both, and many others, fighting for Stephen; desperate to find him, desperately hoping he would be found elsewhere, safe and well.  I felt, in some weird, metaphysical way, responsible.  I was trying to help my friend, his mother, hold onto hope while trying to push aside the paralyzing thought of how I could ever face her if. 

Across town, drama was playing out in a different way.  You certainly know the story of Malachi, The Boy Who Lived.  Malachi survived a blow to the face by a cement block, which should have killed him instantly, was helped by friends who, providentially nearby and providentially prepared, gave him the proper treatment and carried him to the hospital.  The triage team didn't know where he was when his family arrived.  It was a war zone there, and there was not time for niceties like insurance information or, often, for patient names.  There was no billing by the hospital that night; helping people became paramount.  Malachi's family searched for him room-by-room and bed-by-bed.  When he was found on a stretcher in a side hallway they were told that patients put there were seriously injured but stable enough to wait; many weren't.  He was bathed in grace.

While searching for Malachi, his brother found Stephen, unhurt but stunned and shocky, contacted his family, and sat with him and kept him present until his father arrived.  Hearing the storm approaching, he had gone not to the designated "safe area" in the building but to the bathroom adjacent to it.  The safe area was destroyed, but he walked out of the bathroom unhurt.  He should have been killed, but wasn't.  He was bathed in grace.

Rumors were flying that night, of course.  Malachi's sister was receiving texts asking if it was true that Malachi had been killed before she had even been told that he had been injured.  A person who would send a text like this is more reptile than human.  My first notice, not that I'm anyone, was someone receiving a text and casually (not, but sounded so) stating that Malachi was heading for surgery and was not expected to survive.  Again, not true.  Please, please, if you have any shred of human decency and are ever unfortunate to be present at such a disaster, please do not phone, text, email, or speak any "news" of which you yourself are not personally witness.  It is not the time for gossip.  The truth is hard enough in such circumstances, and it is hard enough to communicate with the physical and electronic systems all clogged by frantic people trying to find the truth about those they desperately love.  Keep your mouth shut, your fingers off the buttons, and if you have to talk things over, do it in prayer.

Malachi was at my house last night, making music with friends.  He is as awesome as he's always been.  He has a few small scars but his face is unmarked.  He is more thoughtful, perhaps, than a year before.  Or perhaps he is just more determined to voice his heart, which he regularly puts on display at frictionlesstea.blogspot.com

Stephen starts a new job today, so will be around here less often for a while and he'll be missed.

I care deeply for both these young men, the sons of my friends, and friends of my sons.  (How cool is that?)  I am thankful every day that they were spared when so many, equally beloved, were taken.  We need to remember the One who protected their lives, and we need to remember those who were lost.  We need to remember not the storm, but the Calmer of the storm, and the fact that we who belong to Him, whether present in time or out of time into eternity, are awash in limitless grace.