The photos from the Friday night tornado in Mississippi and Alabama are devastating. Over the past several years it seems that tornados have come earlier and more frequent as well as taking different paths. Some wonder if they reflect the changing climate. Although scientists can connect hurricanes and flooding to the warming planet, tornadoes are not as easily measurable.
They are just as destructive, perhaps even more frightening since the early warning systems are not as good. Across the Midwest, people built underground shelters to survive tornadoes, but there are no basements or such shelters in a trailer park. The sound is that of a roaring freight train, say those who have survived a tornado.
Sadly, we see the images of people trying to pick up pieces of their lives, and we cannot help but wonder how we would survive such a disaster. The devastating is frightening. The real devastation, of course, is in the many who died in the storm. Beyond prayer for the survivors, we can contribute to the United Way of West Central Mississippi, the lead agency for assisting them in rebuilding lives.
Prayer for the Day
Give us grace, so we heal each other’s hurts in a time of pain,
Acting as a community of love in your image
Give us imagination, we pray, to look beyond the limits
We often set for ourselves, thinking nothing can help,
Give us strength, we pray, to live each day with courage and hope,
Moving into your future with the promise of true life,
We ask this in the name of the One who teaches healing,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen
Thoughts for the Day
When you start putting a lot of these events together, and you start looking at them in the aggregate sense, the statistics are pretty clear that not only has there sort of been a shift of where the greatest tornado frequency is happening, But these events are becoming perhaps stronger, more frequent and also more variable.
- Victor Gensini, tornado expert, University of Northern Illinois
Our grief is as individual as our lives.
- Elisabeth Kubler Ross, writer (1926-2004)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night but I find no rest.
Psalm 22: 1