After an hour long drive, our bus pulled to a stop under the train tracks. Entry to the tiny, rural Alabama town of Cordova requires a police escort. This protective measure was implemented in response to the sky-rocketing crime rates there ever since the devastation of April 27th's storms. Their police station was blown away (it has since been replaced by a FEMA trailer) and looters have been running rampant in the city. So our bus-load of students stopped and waited to be led by Cordova police to the heart of the destruction.
About a week and a half ago, terrible storms ravaged the Southeast. It is estimated that more than 190 tornadoes touched down in the state of Alabama alone. Little Cordova was ripped apart by one of these funnel clouds.
It was this destruction that brought me to Cordova on Saturday morning. I had joined a team hoping to provide relief to the residents of the city by offering our help with tornado clean-up. Earlier that morning I had met friends in my church parking lot and boarded the Cordova-bound bus, armed with sunscreen, work gloves, a limb lopper, and the sack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I felt that I was ready for the day's work, but I was wrong. Nothing could have prepared me for the utter devastation of that place only an hour's drive from my home.
After we had secured our police-escort, we made our way to the heart of the town. We passed about six blocks of little brightly colored wooden houses before we crossed the path of the storm. It started out as downed trees in the yards of little houses, but soon gave way to enormous piles of debris standing where homes and businesses had once been. The storm that ripped through Cordova was an EF-4 tornado. The strength of its winds was powerful enough to reduce the buildings of downtown and its surrounding areas to stacks of rubble.
The bus pulled to a stop and we unloaded into the midst of the destruction. It's still hard for me to wrap my mind around what we saw. In any direction you turned, there were crushed cars, warped homes, felled trees, and bricks, shingles, and steel beams strewn all across the ground. It's impossible to articulate the way that disbelief, fear, and awe combined as I gazed out across the acres and acres of land that had been leveled by the storm. Quite simply, it looked as though the peaceful town of Cordova had been bombed. It was that kind of war-torn desolate destruction.
In that moment in Cordova, I struggled to comprehend how my sovereign, all-powerful God could allow a storm to lay waste to an entire city like that. But at the same time, I was humbled to realize that this tornado, of such raw and unstoppable power, was in its own way a reflection of the power and force of God's glory. I was reminded of John Piper's words in his book Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ (it's phenomenal, you should read it), speaking of the experience of surviving a hurricane with his family, Piper wrote "Beneath the wreckage of such wind you have two choices: worship or curse."
In the face of the destruction of Cordova, worship seemed an almost impossible choice, but devastating winds are not unique to our time or place. In fact it was wind that killed Job's ten children: "And behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead" (Job 1:19).
In such a heart-wrenching circumstance, a response of anger and rebellion against the God of the wind would be understandable, but Job chose a different approach: "Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:20-21).
To worship and bless the name of the LORD as Job did seems unbelievable until 2:10 when he explains the reasoning behind his response: "Should we accept only good things from God and never anything bad?" Chapter 37 articulates the reason we ought to approach adversity with a worshipful response: "[Whirlwinds] turn around and around by his guidance, to accomplish all that he commands them on the face of the habitable world. Whether for correction for his land or for love, he causes it to happen...Stop and consider the wondrous works of God" (Job 37:12-14).
Remembering the words of John Piper and the Biblical example of Job, I was moved to worship in the midst of devastation in Cordova. On April 27th, God's might was displayed for all to see. It brought massive trees falling from the sky, and it blew houses to shambles; demonstrating the supremacy of God's power over both the natural and man-made fixtures of this earth.
I spent my day in Cordova working with a team clearing debris from homes and businesses that had been destroyed. Sadly, many of the homes in the town that were still standing had been condemned and were unsafe to enter. Most of the assistance we were able to give was just dragging piles of bricks, beams, and tree branches to the roadside so waste management could more easily clear the lots.
Most of the homes in Cordova must have been around for quite a while. The mountains of debris that we worked through were filled with old keepsakes, black and white photos, antique books, and other elements of the material life that we so fiercely gather around us in our time on earth. At times, I felt that the things I was leafing through were too personal, as though I was delving too deeply into someone else's life to be finding wedding pictures and My Little Pony dolls under shingles and felled trees in the yard.
But at the same time, I was humbled to see the power of the winds to lay to waste so much of what we view as "important" in this lifetime. All too often money and the possessions we can buy with it serve as the driving force behind our decisions: what degree we will pursue, what career path we will follow, and how we spend our time. Yet, in the midst of the destruction left by that tornado, I couldn't help but feel that things aren't nearly as important as we seem to think they are, for in a moment, a lifetime of possessions can be swept away in the storms that God commands.
Ultimately, we are left with two things: a God who commands our worship, and the people he commands us to love. All else is temporary, fleeting, and unworthy of our time and attention.
And after a long, exhausting day's work we boarded the bus parked near what had once been the town's baseball field, and began the hour long drive away from what is left of the town of Cordova. As we pulled away and passed under the town's train tracks, I realized that even though I was the one who had arrived to "help" the town that I had received much more from that place than I ever could have given to it. I provided a Saturday of service to Cordova, but in return I was given a glimpse of God's might, so powerful that it challenges my perspective on this life and my purpose in it: I am the child of the God of destructive might, but whatever may befall, I am redeemed. No force of this world, no destruction on earth, and no loss of property of life, can ever separate me from my calling as a follower of Christ.
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