Life after an earthquake

Life after an earthquake is a little boy running out of the house like an arrow shot from a bow, every time the wind rattles the windows. It is a young girl crying when she remembers the dead children she witnessed, wrapped only in sheets, lying out on the hillside lit by flickering candles.

Life after an earthquake is a teenage girl sobbing and screaming in terror as an aftershock hits some weeks later.

Life after an earthquake is a grown woman seeing the lamp wobble above her on the dentist´s chair, trying to get up and out of there.

Life after an earthquake is a 94 year old lady literally shaking in her bare feet and collapsing cane hut for days on end after another aftershock asaults her shattered nerves. 

Life after an earthquake is grief, orphans, loss, survival.

Life after an earthquake is an inertia of the soul, a closing down, a huddling inside oneself in search of safety. It is a feeling of everything else somehow being on hold, despite the hive of activity on the surface. It is treading water until you can start to believe life is going to carry on. 

Life after an earthquake is families living under plastic, exposed to the mosquitoes, without a toilet, running water or electricity. It is delivering food parcels to these families left without jobs. It is giving them clothes to cover themselves and toys to brighten their day.

Life after an earthquake is building and repairing. It is knocking down and clearing rubble, leaving once crowded areas bare. Slowly the sounds of sweeping cease, the dust settles and blocks begin to be placed upon blocks once again.

Life after an earthquake is a sense that solid ground is no longer firm. The future is not predicable. The foundations of life have shifted sending out ripples into every area of life.

And yet life after an earthquake continues, as it did before, resting in the loving arms of the Saviour who is the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the solid rock on whom we can rely and rebuild our lives. He is our hope for eternity.