Today, I got home from work to find two giant cardboard boxes sitting, soaking wet, in the pouring rain. What did they hold? Only 1,000 precious little CD babies of our new album. After lugging them inside and facing the immediate dilemma of "I need to get these out of the cardboard mush ASAP before moisture gets into the CD packagings" and "Chris is not home. I cannot open these album boxes without him. That would be wrong..." I compromised by putting them up on their sides, opening the soggy tops & bottoms, and clawing a few smaller box corners open to let air in. Or something.
(Chris then got home. And we opened them. They look ok. The peasants rejoiced.)
First order of business? Open one up and start playing it, because something could have happened to the master we sent and the songs could be in the wrong order or there could be terrible sounds or something could cut off too soon. (No, I don't have anxiety or trust issues. Obvi.)
(P.S. The CDs work just fine. Praise the Lord.)
So, as we started to take on other tasks while keeping an ear in the background to make sure Track 5 is indeed Track 5, I hopped on Facebook, like any good inefficient user of time. Scrolling through the newsfeed (I gave that up for Lent this year. I'm allowed to look now. Often, it doesn't bring me enough joy to warrant how much I do it. Go figure.), I saw this blogpost that a friend shared. It has been raining for days, and flooding is starting to plague our area. This is moments after seeing news reports of the wave of tornadoes that hit the south. Truthfully, I haven't read much about it to this point. I've maybe been slightly distracted by other things.
But I read this post. The writer tells of being near the tornadoes, how the giant EF5 tornado hit the street they had just moved away from, and how her dear friend had just moved TO that area. She writes about their frantic search for their friends and their children. I will not do the author injustice by badly summarizing the ending and aftermath of their search. But it talks of both incredible anger at God at loss of life and His apparent "plans," and of incredible faith that is not shaken even by the deepest grief - indeed, what is likely my greatest, deep-seated fear.
As I journeyed through those words, our album got to the song "Night." It is a song about desperately trying to cling to hope when everything seems dark. The chorus sings:
"Promise when all is said and done You'll be true
And that You're gonna make all things new."
My eyes did not stay dry. This world is broken. This is NOT how things were meant to be - homes being wiped clean from their foundations, children being taken, losing everything we hold dear. Can everything really be made new??
...That's just it, isn't it? It depends what we hold dear. If it is things on this earth, then yes, we can lose everything. But if it is something Deeper, something Greater, than it is impossible to lose everything.
The next song continued, "Far Beyond." It was like I was hearing it with fresh ears, someone who hadn't played a part in its creation but just an earnest listener.
"Two things that I trust you will restore -
The world, and my ever-broken heart;
knowing that I'll count them all the more
Beautiful for having once been torn apart."
The tears continued. Is it really possible that one day this earth will be fully redeemed? That in its radiance, every tear and woe from this life will make the new life that much more glorious? Sometimes it seems too much to dare to hope... and then, at the same time, it seems too much NOT to trust it. The pain we feel here is not the end of the story. It is not meaningless.
I am grateful. Grateful for an album that is complete and sitting here in our living room. Grateful that as lightning crashes outside and rain pelts our walls, we are dry inside them. Grateful that this album is not merely a business or a marketing venture - it is timid, firm Hope, in song form. Grateful that technology can be used to help us rally around those who are despairing and struck down, however far away they might be. And grateful for the sobering reminder that every last bit of our life could blow away tonight, yet we would still have more than we ever could have imagined for ourselves.
Again, the blogpost about The Cheerleader (the faithful) is here.
And you can support the surviving family here.
-Jenna
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