I was so worried about my Chemistry final... and my Math final... and my this, and my that...
...but April 27 changed all of that.
I realized that all of my seemingly trivial and torturous things in my life
aren't so trivial and torturous afterall.
Within a matter of hours, a tornado the size of multiple football fields touched down (and stayed down) all the way through central Alabama. Well... guess where my home town is?
Central Alabama.
Complete and total devastation.
My heart dropped multiple times that night, and I cried multiple times that night, waiting to find out if friends and loved ones were even still alive.
(thankfully everyone that I know or am close to that was in the storm is safe, by the grace of God)
...but like I said, there are literally no words to describe it, and since a picture says a thousand words, here's a few from Concord, Alabama, two days after the storm...
...somewhere right in there, by the road, used to be Hill's Carpet...
...and on the top of that hill, where the pink "wall" is? A friend of mine's house used to be there...
...the opposite side of the road from Hill's Carpet...
...amidst the rubble and remnants of people's homes...
...see that coal plant off in the background? Not one person that lived in this area had ever been able to physically see that plant before. Not even in the winter...
...it doesn't matter where you moved to, the devastation was there - and there was no making it look any better...
...that church bus? It used to live about a half mile to a mile back down by the road...
...this one got me the most... just over that hill is one small neighborhood and then another hill... and just over that hill? Even more devastation than you've seen in these pictures. Miles upon miles upon MILES of devastation through Pleasant Grove, Alabama (and then further east).
...even these pictures don't convey enough words for you to understand.
You don't realize EXACTLY how bad it is until you're standing amidst the rubble,
watching people scramble to save even the tiniest things from their homes,
the seemingly irrelevant things that have the very MOST amount of memories attached to them.
Those are the things that really get you thinking...
...are my problems really that bad?
And guess what?
The answer is no.
They're not.
Because in a split second, in an instant...
...it can all be gone,
blown away,
without warning.
In an instant, thousands of people lost their homes and hundreds lost their lives.
(and I have been being silly enough to think that my personal problems are big enough to fret and worry about?? What have I been thinking??)
On a little bit brighter side, though...
through the storm, comes sunshine.
and that sunshine from this particular storm?
I have a distinct feeling it's going to be a pretty and bright sunshine.
Perhaps brighter than sunshine.
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