Things That Are Not Fair

I'm watching my husband spackle our kitchen ceiling. It's a new beginning for our kitchen, a new beginning five years in the making. But it comes on the heels of mass destruction just one state over in Oklahoma City, where tonight parents are wondering where their babies are.

It's not fair.

All I could think all afternoon is that it's not fair Chateau Travolta is still standing.

We had a tornado watch all day.

What leaves, what stays: It's not fair.

My daughter fears the tornados. She has trouble falling asleep in the midst of a heavy thunderstorm. I remember feeling that way as a child, living in a house my parents built on the footprint of another house destroyed in a tornado, as if the same thing couldn't happen twice.

Surrender, Dorothy.

But we live here, in the Midwest, in the land of extreme weather, of pop-up storms where the warm winds of the Gulf of Mexico kiss the winds of Canada on a fairly regular basis.

We live here, and we hope.

But whether or not our homes are torn asunder, there is one guarantee: It's not fair.

Tornadoes have shaped my faith. We all need grace, because in the land of dust storms and redemption, nothing is as it seems, and no amount of clean living can save you from the cold front meeting the warm front and dancing.

You may live another day, you may lose your house, you may lose everything. Or you may not. It's not fair, and it's not even predestined. It's just ... there.

And so, tonight, my heart breaks for Oklahoma City and its suburbs. I'm so sorry.

It's not fair.

And I love you all. I wish there were some way I could do more.