For those of you who have not heard (or do not know that I am in the DC area) we had an earthquake around 2pm today. First thing I want to say, is that though the media definitely has over reacted (just like it does for anything) I disagree with the people saying that it was not a big deal. If you compare the quake to Japan, or even those in CA, it was fairly minor. But if you compare the quake to the East Coast's history with quakes, and especially DC, you will find that it was quite a big deal indeed. When it happened, I was in the living room sewing and watching a show with my little brother. All of a sudden the house started shaking (slowly) and I thought it was our dryer. (Our dryer will sometimes shake things on the top floor) As the amount of shaking grew and grew I thought the dryer was going bonkers. When I was about to run upstairs, things started falling off of shelves, and I realized that this was NOT the dryer. At this point my thoughts were quite amusing.... (all thought in about five seconds)"If it's not the dryer, what is it? It feels like an earthquake. I have never been in a earthquake, how would I know what one feels like? Ok, this is definitely an earthquake. But there aren't earthquakes in DC. Ok this is DEFINITELY an earthquake, out of the house!" I grabbed my youngest brother and ran out of the back door, while screaming to my 14 year old brother "It's an earthquake! Get outside RIGHT NOW!!" Now the back door leads to a porch, that overlooks our backyards (and has no stairs down to the back yard.) As the porch starts to violently shake, I think to myself "If this gets any worse, will it be safter to jump off the porch or run 30 feet through the house to the front yard?" (Note to self: Next time a random earthquake happens in DC, and you are running for safety, try running to a door the leads to SOLID GROUND!) Riley finally makes his way onto the porch just as things stop shaking, and says "Nice job going out to second story porch during an earth quake Bekah." Ha ha I know, I'm a genius right? ;) (Yet another side note, I LOVE our neighborhood. As soon as I ran onto the back porch, I heard tons of neighbors yelling to see if anyone needed help and if everything was ok.) (Just to clarify, all of the last paragraph happened in about one minute and thrity seconds.) I got back inside, and of course, get on Facebook to see how many of my friends also felt it. Well it's officially about 30 seconds after the quake and there are already 5 status' up asking if other people felt it (I love FB :) I then google the quake and find an article from USA today saying that the Pentagon and Capitol were being evacuated, and that it was 5.9 in magnitude. (I LOVE google more... the news (on TV) took 5 minutes to change over to quake news!) Then I start trying to call my mom to let her know we are ago (she was out of town) and my sister to see if she was ok. It ends up taking me an hour to reach my mom and almost two hours to reach my sister. So, there is my story, wether you wanted to hear it or not ;) It was quite the exciting day, and I am so thankful to God that no one was hurt, and almost no damage was done. (A couple things broke, but for the most part, every thing is looking good here!)
As I have been thinking a lot about the quake, I realized just how wonderful it is to have a stable God. I mean, our lifes have "quakes" all the time. And sometimes I find myself running onto back porches that sway instead of solid ground (God.) I keep wanting to write an article on God's faithfulness through all times. I don't have time right now, but hopefully I will soon.
Thank you all of my wonderful friends and family who called to make sure I am alright. I feel very loved!
P.s... we are having a guest post tomorrow from my good friend Rhett over at My Imaginative Scribbles. I can't wait!
~Rebekah
5 comments:
I was so thankful that you were all ok! I also love your analogy of our quakes and God as our safe and solid ground. Keep sharing your heart Bekah! You're beautiful :)
hey,
So I haven't been telling everyone my story of the earthquake, because it was rather stupid, but I figure, ah why not it was fun.
So I was on the third floor of our old townhouse, and if there is anything you should know about our townhouse is we have a giant crack down the entire wall of the corner of my room, and it continues on the second floor ceiling. Now it hasn't shifted this crack for about five years, but for one of the years living their we could tell that the houses foundation was bad because the crack got larger that year. Anyway, I was in my room unpacking because we are moving to Pursaville and the room started shacking at first I thought. "Dang, dad is really pounding, he must really need me?" now this was a fairly retarded first thought since he was in the basement. Then it got worse and I continued to think "MY goodness! If he keeps this up he is going to break all of my lead soldiers." My lead soldiers began falling and before I could come to their aid my mom came running out of her room and said to me. "Rhett, its in earthquake get downstairs now." So re ran down the stair and to the basement and ran out to our back patio and it stopped. In summery I thought a 5.8 earthquake was my dad pounding on the wall from the basement. so you know only two of my lead soldiers were slightly damaged. But they both look fine, just some loose pieces. :)
Rhett
Ha ha Rhett, I love your story. Quite funny :)
Such a good post! Hopefully, there won't be a next time, but the front door sounds like a better idea! :)
To read my earthquake experiences, check out my blog: www.angiesadlib.blogspot.com
Isn't it amazing how fast we think and how we only notice when time slows down, like in an earthquake.
Love that you bring it back around to God's faithfulness. And yes, I sometimes run to back porches too, when I should be running to God. Great thought for my day today!
Bekah! I like the thoughts that were running through your head. They were pretty similar to my own... XD
This was definitely the perfect illustration of God's stability and how we will try to find stability in other places. I think that I might use your story for Apologetics in Speech... if that's ok with you... :)
Post a Comment