Meers has a gadget that measures the activity of earthquakes in Oklahoma. They say we get a bunch of them each year; we just don't feel them. Well, I felt Saturday night's earthquake. I was sitting in my recliner watching the news when "sha-bam!" The blast sounded like Ft. Sill missed their normal target and exploded a quadruple round in my backyard. My recliner started shaking like a mega vibrator, and seemed to drop down into the ground. Immediately, I thought it was an earthquake. No sooner had I yelled to my husband, than the reporter on the news said, "Uh, I think we just had an earthquake. We'll have to wait for officials to confirm it, but I do believe we just had one."
My husband thought our back porch had fallen down. It hadn't. But it sure sounded like it. My dining-room chandelier was rocking back and forth. A crack trails all the way across the ceiling now. I wondered where the quake's epicenter was. When I heard it was east of Oklahoma City, I could only thank God it wasn't downtown Lawton.
This isn't my first earthquake experience, mind you. One time I sat in my living-room in Kentucky and watched walls move from side to side as the pictures hung perfectly straight. It was the weirdest thing I ever saw. I didn't feel anything. I can't imagine what it might be like to be those poor people in Japan last year. I heard on the news that all that debris from their quake is floating across the Pacific ocean and Hawaii is going to get a direct hit by tons and tons of cars, stoves, refrigerators, trash sometime this next year. It's going to be one massive mess. Hawaii will have an instant garbage dump.
In church this week, someone mentioned that if we'd stop drilling for oil and natural gas we wouldn't have these earthquakes. Some folks think taking all of that underground fluid from cushioning the movement beneath the earth's crust disrupts the make-up of layers. I'm a bit gullible, but I'm pretty sure they were joking. I do consider it though. Look at how much damage it does to one's back when the fluid in our disc's herniate and fluid seeps out of pocket. Bone against bone may not make the earth move, but it will certainly make a body stand still.
Supposedly, our quake was one for the record books in Oklahoma. The big one in comparison to all others. I pray we don't get anything any bigger. Those things are scary. How do folks live in California and deal with those shakes and shudders every day? I want my feet on solid ground. Conversations about Oklahoma's "big one" of 2011, could be heard throughout the church on Sunday morning. One man noted that it was a sign of the times...the "end times". He could be right, especially with rumors abounding about Israel's probability of bombing Iran. Any student of the Bible knows these are some warnings we are given. Yet, we are not to fear. When the preacher mentioned the quake just before his sermon, my granddaughter, Haylee, tugged on my arm so she could whisper in my ear: "I slept with mommy and daddy, last night, Grama. All night." I asked if she was afraid, and she said, "no". That's how I feel. Each night I sleep with my Heavenly Father. With Him in my life, I have nothing to fear. Nothing at all.
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