An eternal perspective on the earthquake in Japan

Our Summitview pastor Mitch has done a really great job of posting summary, Biblical response, and resources for us to help the people of Japan in his blog. He is a much better writer than I as well :) 


Anyway, once again, God taught me things that I at first thought were random but then realized were actually connected. I realize I'm a pattern thinker - not necessarily a visual pattern thinker the way Dr. Grandin sometimes implies when she shows a complicated Oragami folding pattern when she talks about pattern thinking. I get more conceptual maps - anyway... when I think about the earthquake in Japan on a personal or global level, I must have an eternal perspective. 


For two days I wondered how one of my HDFS friends who was from Japan was doing. We worked on a end of semester project together. Unlike two other girls I know from Japan, she had not posted anything on her Facebook page about the earthquake. Also, people had written on her wall and she had not responded. I started to get worried. I didn't want to think about the worst happening, but I knew I had to at some point. It was easier for me to imagine her doing double-overtime at a hospital as a child-life specialist or being stuck at home with no internet or TV than it was to imagine her stuck under rubble or stuck out at sea or something worse. I wrote her an email and asked friends if they had heard from her. 


This afternoon, I finally had to settle with the reality that she might have been gone. That hurt. A lot. I felt a crushing feeling in my heart and in my head. I had memories in my head of us working on that paper together and sitting in class together. I also had memories of her graduation. I had to contend with how I would cope if she was indeed gone forever. The first thing that came to my head was the complicated grief literature. There are different issues and more of a chance of unresolved or complicated grief that come with family or friends who cope with a missing person. I was trying to remember where I put my grief / loss textbook so I could look that information up. Then I felt God prodding around in my intellectual corner of my brain. "Katie, you need more than that textbook." I knew God wanted me to come to Him with my feelings and with my fears of, "God, how will I handle it if my friend was lost in the earthquake?" Tears came to my eyes. I could call Summitview and see if one of the pastors is around. But first God wanted to hear it from me. God, I know You have been good to my friend - bringing her to the US and letting her get her degree here. I know You have given her every chance to know You. You are glorified in her life no matter what, and I know You will help me deal with things if she's not here. God, I need Your help to deal with any grief issues. 


As I had that settled in my head and wondered what was going to happen, I got an email from our mutual friend: SHE'S OK! SHE WORKS IN THE SOUTH PART OF THE COUNTRY! She just doesn't have electricity with the craziness that's going on. I was most DEFINITELY  RELIEVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) I could've asked God why He couldn't have allowed me to know that SOONER, but I think He wanted me to go through that whole process of trusting Him and believing He is good even while preparing for potentially bad news. He wanted me to keep an eternal perspective - an eternal hope for me to hold onto in case I had a physically real loss. 


Later tonight, my roommate shared that her friend had posted Luke 21:10 - 11 with a note that the World Trade Center / Pentagon attacks were on September 11, the Haiti earthquake was on January 11, and this latest earthquake in Japan was March 11. Odd and definitely getting into the realm of it being less probable that it was random, but I'm guessing there's still some wiggle room for randomness. Yet even here I go imagining plugging data into SPSS and somehow generating a printout that shows, "Well, it's ALMOST p>.05 that this came out that way, but you know, you can't reject the null hypothesis of randomness completely." I'd like that, though. I'd like somehow a nice little statistical table showing whether these things truly are 'chance' or whether God is deliberately creating a pattern or not. 


Well, why do I get unsettled when I ponder if God IS setting all this up and when I think about "What if the end times ARE coming soon?" Part of it is a carry-over from my childhood where I was terrified of God coming back because I wasn't ready for heaven because I didn't know Jesus. Another part of it is that it shatters my notion of life as I know it. There's a comfort in a waking up and going to work / church / activities and even a comfort in dealing with 'normal' daily hassles. It's just part of life. Yes, the end - the FINAL end of the world would mean no more sickness/disease/death/suffering/hardship and mean an eternal party with Jesus, but unfortunately we have to go through super hard probably unpredictable stuff here first. 


Ok so... what if the earthquake in Japan is a sign that God is up to something? How should I pray? Well, first of all, I should pray for the nations so that more people know Jesus :) He's invited TONS of people from EVERY NATION to His eternal party so, might as well tell people :) Second of all, I should pray that believers' faith is strengthened. This is something I've been praying for people in Japan - that they have an understanding of God as their secure anchor even though the earth literally gave way. Wow, that will be an intense testimony from those people!!!! Second of all, I should pray that myself and others maintain the eternal perspective of  'possible pending doom aka end of the world chaos' that God is good, He is in control, and He has our best as Believers and He has given others who don't know Him yet every opportunity to come to know Him. This eternal perspective can be my anchor through potentially huge nation/societal shifts just like it would've been my anchor had I found out bad news about my friend. 


Having God as an anchor to all of our souls can get us through physical earthquakes, potential personal losses, and larger upheavals in life. It is definitely a relief and I have seen it slowly replace fear I have had with a sure hope. I pray that many people in Japan and around the world come to this same hope in Christ as well!