The
Surprising Sinkholes of Life
Even
though your house may appear to rest on solid ground, there is still the
possibility you may find yourself suddenly awakened in the middle of the night
by the rumble of your bedroom floor opening into a massive hole, sliding you
and the contents of the room into its pit, interrupting your sweet dreams with
dirt and debris.
And
if you live in Florida, Texas,
Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, or Pennsylvania, you are more at risk
for a sinkhole to ruin your day or night. But sinkholes occur in other places
too, so you might want to sleep with one eye open, watching the bedroom floor
for any unusual movements.
And don’t bother kicking the ground around your
house like you do when checking a tire on a used car. The problem lies deep
beneath the earth’s surface.
Just
ask the people in Hillsborough County, Florida, known as “sinkhole alley,” an
area that accounts for two-thirds of the sinkhole-related insurance claims in
that state. This is where Jeff Bush once lived. Bush disappeared into a
sinkhole when it yawned and swallowed him and his entire bedroom while he was
sleeping last Saturday. Efforts to rescue him were limited by the danger of the
expanding hole and were called off by Sunday morning.
“This
is not your typical sinkhole,” Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill
said of the one that took Bush’s life. “This is a chasm that covers a great
distance.”
But
it’s not so much the size of the sinkhole that’s startling; it’s the suddenness
of its occurrence.
Anthony
Randazzo, who has been studying this geological phenomenon for 40 years, knows
of only two people who have died because of a sinkhole. “Usually you have some
time,” said Randazzo, who lectures on sinkholes at Oxford University.
“Usually
you have some time.”
But
apparently not always.
It
doesn’t have to be a sinkhole that punctuates your life with an unexpected
period.
Sometimes
it’s a tornado. Or a heart attack. Or a drunk driver. Or a weak ladder.
And
your day is done; your number is called; your bell has tolled.
Jeff
Bush simply went to bed and woke up in a deep hole, screaming for help.
Life
folds into death that way, and suddenly we are covered with dirt.
Concerned
by-standers can only cover their mouths in horror.
Jeremy
Bush, Jeff’s brother, tried to rescue him.
“He
was my brother, man, I loved him,” Jeremy said through tears.
And
Jeff’s aunt, Janell Wheeler, cried, “I just want my nephew.”
“Usually
you have time.”
But
not always.
Life’s
surprising sinkholes crack open with those unusuallies, the exceptions that widen
into gaping holes, plunging more and more victims into the underworld’s caverns
of death.
Eighteen
people in Jesus of Nazareth’s day weren’t expecting a tower in Siloam to fall
down and kill them. It must have left people wondering who was responsible. The
builder of the tower? The people who were standing in the wrong place at the
wrong time? Was it some sort of punishment from God?
None
of the above.
“Do
you think they were any more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I
tell you, no! But unless you repent, you will all perish” (Luke 13:5).
Jesus
reminds us we live in a world filled with unwanted surprises---some of them not
the usual you’ve-got-time-to-get-out-of-the-way- sinkholes---a world where
towers unexplainably fall on unsuspecting victims and storms suddenly destroy
people’s lives.
And
Jesus indicated that our most certain certainty is found in what he called
repentance, practicing the presence of Christ, living a life aligned with his
Father, building on the foundation which is solid rock, Jesus himself.
As
workers demolished the house that Jeffrey Bush once lived in, survivors found
solace in one of the few items plucked from the wreckage: a Bible. Clutching it,
they looked to the name of the street where they had lived for some 40 years:
Faithway Drive.
Hopefully,
with the Bible as a guide and faith in God as their support, they will continue
their journey down faithway drive, traveling the precarious, uncertain road called
life, knowing it’s the road to Somewhere, where the Someone who has been guiding
them all along at long last waits.
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