When a Tornado is More than a Freight Train

Save for people living in idyllic locales like Hawaii, who hasn't seen...over and over...some curmudgeonly old lady with wild hair proclaiming that the recent tornado sounded, indeed, like a freight train. Freight Train Lady always seems to be wearing some kind of haggard fuzzy bathrobe too. Now, I suppose it would be cruel to critique some one's post-disaster fashion. After all, weather disasters never provide much advance notice. Somehow, though, don't you get the feeling that Freight Train Lady wears that thing all the time anyway and why on earth does she want to be on the five, six, and ten o'clock news so badly?

I've always lived in the south. Tornado watches and warnings are an inescapable part of life here. Seeing the devastation on the five, six, and ten o'clock news is a part of it too. Hearing reports of the dead and the missing...that's part of it too. Deep down, we love those Freight Train Ladies. Everyone needs a smile in the midst of tragedy whether you are directly affected, whether you empathize, or whether you are reeling from the knowledge that you nearly lost everyone and everything you hold dear.

Union University is a small Baptist college in Jackson, Tennessee. Three years ago on February 5th, at 7:02 pm, an EF4 tornado (166-200 mph winds) destroyed most of the campus, including most of the dorms. The band of tornadoes that roared through eight southern states that day killed more than fifty people. It was the deadliest series of tornadoes the United States had endured in twenty three years. Union sustained about forty million dollars of damage. Classes were canceled for two weeks.

One thousand two hundred students were amongst this.

No one died.

It's poignant for me, because I lived in those dorms. Endless memories of late nights and hanging out with sorority sisters...even an epic ice storm in '94. The ceiling collapsed on our toilet, and we all had to pee outside in the middle of the night until maintenance could fix it the next morning. Now that is the sort of memory that roommates always share with laughter.

Why was Union spared the devastation of loss of life? It does seem very unlikely that such a thing would happen. The close proximity of the students to one another, the small campus, the old dorms, their two-story, concrete block construction, the time of day, and the severity of the tornado all seem to indicate that some loss of life would have occurred.

I don't know if any atheists or agnostics have offered any theories, statistical or otherwise. We Christians have unilaterally cried, Praise God.

Why was Union spared when thousands suffered so horribly? I offer this to you. God isn't any more a fairy godmother providing a constant safety net against all problems than He is a hapless, bumbling pseudo-deity somewhere in the sky. His intervention invariably defies human logic and often runs contrary to what we humans deem best. Or tolerable. Or humane.

My explanation, however, requires some biblical assistance in the form of James 4:14, which says the following:
"yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes."

I tend to think of life like waiting to be seated at a restaurant. If the entirety of my life is that long compared to eternity, is anything I suffer so egregious? Who I am to demand intervention...to shake an angry fist skyward if my desires are not met? I merely marvel when God's intervention occurs.

Like Union University on February 5, 2008. When an EF4 tornado destroyed a small campus with over a thousand people present.

And no one died.





photo credit: WithoutWax.tv by Pete Wilson