Kansas is known for its tornadoes, Florida for hurricanes… Every place has its perils I suppose. It isn’t a surprise to anyone in southeastern Wyoming when it rains and hails. Hail is a summer fact of life here. Usually, the hail is pea-sized, and you know it is coming because the clouds in the sky turn this really bilious green and the temperature drops about 20 degrees in a matter of minutes. Then, you can be assured that the peonies that just started blooming in the back yard are going to get hammered. One of my clearest memories as a child is sitting in the back seat of an old grey Studebaker my parents owned. We had just arrived in front of our house when it began hailing. The noise in the car as hail pounded on the roof was definitely loud, but what I recall most is my mother crying while she watched the hail beat down her beautiful flowers in the front yard.
Last Sunday Karl and I worked outside the entire afternoon. It was warm and beautiful. We could see a dark bank of clouds off to the north, but thankfully they went around us and we didn’t even get a sprinkle. Then, we realized that while the storm missed us in Cheyenne, it was devastating to many of our friends in the country. Golf-ball-sized hail took out vegetable gardens and roofs. Acres and acres of wheat and other crops are a total loss. After the storm was over, the home we built and lived in east of town became quite a newsmaker. Pictures of our old house were on the front page of the newspaper and online. At first I didn’t even recognize it as our house, then when I did, I cried. We’ve been in contact with the family who own it now, and while everyone is alright, their home is not. The siding is literally torn off two sides of the house, windows were broken. The greenhouses are toast as are the gardens that were inside them. The damage is unbelievable. The havoc created by a one-hour storm will take weeks if not months to fix. I know that bad things happen to good people (and the people who own our old house are very good people, as are the farmers that we know who lost crops and had injured livestock…). Karl and I both have had moments this week feeling guilty that it was them and not us that suffered the storm.
I know there’s a lesson here. I could write about how easily it is for our mouths and words to create devastation that takes a lifetime to fix, or how one bad choice – like to drink and drive – can create havoc for people that lasts for years. Everything that happens can become a parable for teaching and learning an important truth. I don’t know, though. Maybe hail is just hail and the determination to get up the next morning and fix the damage is just what humans do. Maybe the most important lesson is to be reminded that God is in the bad and the good. Oh hail, I don’t know!
