It's a good thing I am a morning person or I would have not appreciated my room being rattled around at 5:04 this morning. It lasted only a matter of seconds but was significant enough to wake my entire family and me. My sister sat up in her bed and I could make out her eyes looking at me in the dark. "Was that an earthquake?"
"Yep."
I had gone through a small list of possibilities before drawing that conclusion. Thunder- no, it was felt more than heard, besides, the sun was rising. A car crashing into our house- while that would have been exciting, again, there was no noise other than our furniture hitting the wall, creating a low rumble. So, I drew the conclusion, that either WWIII had just begun or we had an earthquake. I got up walked into my mom's room and stood in the doorway. I was there for a matter of seconds before she just said, "Yes, and yes."
It actually isn't the first time I have experienced one. I had a similar thing happen as a young girl at my grandparent's home in Ohio. That one was strange. My grandmother's china cabinet just began to rattle. It rattled so hard, I thought the dishes were going to fall out. I didn't really feel anything (maybe they have a super strong house), but the china cabinet went crazy for quite a decent chunk of time. I remember telling my family and many of them thought I was nuts. When it came out on the news later, all I could think was "told you!" Of course, the young mind thinks, "I could have died and you guys didn't believe me." (I did a little research and there were many earthquakes in Ohio during that time, all were over 4 on the Richter scale.)
Being a science-minded person and understanding that there just aren't any major fault lines in the area, I went down to flip on the news. The news had no clue anything had happened. It was hilarious.
"Umm... we're getting phone calls from all over the area that there was some sort of shaking, or tremor. We thought it was construction in our building, but we will figure out what it was for you."
A bomb could have just gone off (definitely on my list of possibilities) and they thought is was construction.
It sent four news stations on a simultaneous scramble for the break. First place is awarded to Fox News who stopped their story on the Apple iPhone 'scandal' (which was running simultaneously on every station-- boring) to bring breaking news that DC had been struck by an earthquake fourteen minutes after the fact. The epicenter was just a few miles north of my house. 3.6 they are saying, not bad enough to cause damage but enough to scare a bunch of Eastern Sea Boarders. Now the search is on for the reason why and if we are in continued danger. TV off.
I crawled back in bed and an interesting thought crept into my mind. A praise and worship song I learned when I was little: "The earth shakes at the sound of His voice, the nations tremble before Him..." A smile crept across my face.
"At the sound of His voice." God was apparently speaking this morning at 5:04, and one of the most influential areas in the world heard Him, they just don't know it's Him, or won't acknowledge it is Him. One newscaster even said, "Wow! That was a humbling experience." Humbling because, for once we finally realize how much we can't control everything. But I know the God who can and does.
So, around 6 o'clock, after giving it much thought and reflection, I turned on my side, snuggled down in my sheets and recalled Psalm 4:8, "I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety." For the next two and half hours, that is exactly what I did.
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