Article October 15, 2012 Issue

Are disasters 'natural'?

Amanda Grace Loudon

Courtesy photo

As I looked out the window of the airplane, what drew my eye wasn’t the scenery of the American Southwest—it was the huge billow of smoke from a wildfire.

It was there on the plane, during a summer flight to California for a National Leadership Council trip, that I really began to pray about the issue of natural disasters. That year, 2011, had seen many weather-related outlashes, including floods, fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes in various parts of the world. But as I stared at the fire through the window, what immediately came to mind was that it’s natural for God to care for His creation through loving provisions, and unnatural to assume that His creation includes destruction or loss. I just knew that not a single family was out of God’s care.

I later found out that the fire was contained and extinguished with no loss of lives. And now, innovative efforts to restore that area of forest are underway.

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