Another earthquake post — the one I promised.
In an earlier post, I had mentioned that the Nepal earthquake of April 2015 did not have such a great impact on me than the aftershocks that followed it. Yes, I still think so.
The big one came and went; it was just a memory after five minutes. But hundreds of aftershocks followed it; and they were not just memories. Knowing that they had come today, yesterday, and the day before that; and knowing that they would probably continue on for a whole year made them more than just memories.
It wouldn’t be exactly true to say that aftershocks became a part of life. But it came close.
Sometimes one would come when I was studying at my desk, helping my brother with his schoolwork, or practicing the keyboard. Just a quick shudder, a leap in my pulse — and I would be awed to think that I had not been expecting it. Then another would follow the next day when I was cooking dinner. The water inside the water-filter would tremble again.
Sometimes, they were like the first one; our house would rock and tilt and lurch as if it were a village local bus, crossing the bumpy riverbed. Once, it was more like a jump. But most of the the time, the aftershocks would gently nudge our house — north to south.
You know, our brains are wired in a particular way: it expects the earth keep still. It’s as if our little understandings are saying subconsciously, “Everything can change, but the earth will remain the same.” But that’s not true. The earth can turn to liquid in a split second; and when it does, our brain is a little confused, having its theory disproven.
Once I woke up around 3 a.m. The mattress was sliding north and south, and I was sliding with it. I think it was a being-rocked-in-a-crib-like feeling. I was sleeping with my sisters, and they were woken up by the aftershock, too. We tried to rate the aftershock, amused to think that we had become “experienced” seismologists. We checked the news that morning; and, lo and behold, we had guessed right.
The last time a significant one came (5+ on the Richter scale), I was reading Absolute Surrender by Andrew Murray. It was on a Saturday afternoon, and I was flopped on my brother’s bed, highlighting every other sentence in my ebook. When the windows began to clatter and everything jolted, my heart beat sped up. I was about to get up, but it stopped.
I resumed my reading . . . my mind wandered. The rapture — it will be like this.
“In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound . . . and we shall be changed . . . For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God . . . Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” (from 1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4)
I know it will be at a time when I am not expecting it. He has said to us that He will come “at an hour when ye think not” (Luke 12:40). But I can be ready.
The rapture — perhaps, today might be the day. Are you ready? Are you saved? Is your lamp burning?
Sometime some ordinary day will come,
A busy day like this—filled to the brim
With ordinary tasks—perhaps so full
That we have little thought or care for Him.And there will be no hint from silent skies,
No sign, no clash of cymbals, roll of drums;
And yet that ordinary day will be
The very day in which our Lord will come.
— Anonymous