Two nights ago, I had a very weird dream. Very real. Very sad.
For some reason, I was in Joplin, MO. I have never been to Joplin. I have been to Springfield, MO, about an hour or two south of Joplin, but never to Joplin. Yet, there I was. I was standing in a grove of trees, maybe apple trees, in a fairly rural-looking setting, yet I knew I was in Joplin. How did I know? Was it one of those weird dream things, where you just KNOW?
Or maybe it was the fact that there was a huge, huge, dark cloud on the ground, far away, and it was racing towards me.
Yes, that was how I knew I was in Joplin, MO. The tornado. There it was, roaring towards me, just like in the myriad videos and photos in the media that we have all seen. It was very, very dark blue, almost black...very wide, so wide that I could almost not tell where it began and where it ended across the horizon. It was strangely silent as it spun directly towards the grove of trees I stood rooted in. Somehow, the dream was as if the destruction of Joplin had already happened, as if I KNEW what havoc, what devastation, what grief, what loss it had already caused, and I knew if I didn't move, it would destroy me, too.
So, unlike in most scary dreams where you need to run but your feet are stuck fast to the ground, I was able to turn and run towards a tall, white farmhouse in the distance. Suddenly there were other people around me, all running in the same direction. I sensed this was the family who lived in the house. They were strangers, faceless and nameless, but it didn't matter, we were all of one mind, to save ourselves and one another. Suddenly we were inside the house and all running towards a bathroom on the lower level of the house, one that had a very large, claw-footed, old-fashioned bathtub. We all clambered into it in an orderly way, no pushing or shoving, though we were all terror-filled. I was sitting at the very back. We drew the shower curtain that was hanging there around us and covered our heads with it. We waited and prayed. We bent ourselves double to protect each other.
Suddenly the tornado was upon us, roaring, smashing, sounding like a locomotive, screaming, as we were. Glass broke around us, boards flew, walls shook. But at the end of the storm, that house somehow still stood around us. The next thing I remember, we were walking outside to a desecrated yard, road, landscape. It looked and was very much like all the photos of a broken Joplin that we have all seen in recent weeks. Barren...wartorn...gone. The apple trees I had been standing among were all broken stumps.
After that I woke up. It was time to get up. I went about my day but that dream haunted me, still does, two nights later. Why did I dream of Joplin, MO? After all, something very similar and devastating happened to an even larger area and number of people right here in our own state on April 27, 2011. I have never been to Joplin, MO and know no one there. However, over the past couple weeks, I have become aware of a wonderful young man named Will Norton who graduated from Joplin High School on May 22, 2011. He was all smiles in all the photos I have seen of him and especially of his graduation day in his burgundy cap and gown with his friends...a beautiful, brilliant, talented 18-year-old boy who even had his own YouTube Channel, located here: http://www.youtube.com/user/willdabeast88883333. Will was planning to go to college in CA and study film...but on the afternoon of May 22, 2011, as he drove home from his graduation ceremony with his dad, the Joplin tornado crossed his path and hit his SUV. The sunroof was open and his father desperately clung to Will, trying so hard to hold onto his son that both of his arms were broken. The tornado ultimately won the battle and Will was sucked away. Mark, his father, was hospitalized with massive injuries, and Will was missing for almost a week before his body was found. It was heartbreaking for everyone who had followed the story. Will's father is slowly recovering...his body will heal but not so his heart. Will also leaves behind his mother and sister, and his Aunt Tracey who kept everyone updated on the search and the recovery of Will. Her faith has been an inspiration to everyone.
Maybe, too, it was a video I watched on Sunday night that was just chilling. It was storm chaser/meterologist who actually CHASED the Joplin tornado that afternoon, and who came upon the immediate aftermath in a populated area. He was crying as he talked, as he surveyed the damage to lives and homes.
That video can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfdK6H9d6J0
Maybe it was just the sheer number of deadly tornadoes our country has seen this spring. What would we all do if one like that came through our area? Do you know where in your home you would go? What if you, like Will and his dad, were out driving? Could anyone survive a tornado like that if you were directly in its path?
I don't know why I dreamed what I did. Maybe God was trying to help me gain a greater understanding of what these people went through so I'd have even more sympathy, or maybe for another reason. I just know it was very real, very scary, and if it gave me one-tenth of the sheer terror that the people of Joplin, Tuscaloosa, Pleasant Grove, AL, Birmingham, Minneapolis, MN, Massachusetts, etc. have experienced in the last six weeks, then I hope I have gained an even better perspective of why we should all do everything we can to help these people in these areas, of why they need our prayers and sympathy, donations, anything at all we can do. So many lives were lost and changed forever on April 27, 2011 and May 22, 2011, and even last week in Minnesota and Massachusetts.
We also shouldn't think that it can't happen here. Or wherever it is that you live. Be safe!
