It was a day like any other. Children laughed merrily as they built their castles along the sandy beach. Couples walked hand in hand as the gentle morning breeze lifted their spirits and drew them closer to each other. In the seas, a storm was beginning to brew, but those nearby were oblivious to it all; oblivious to the massive earthquake that had shaken the very foundations of the earth’s axis; oblivious about the impending destruction that would soon annihilate the very way life was to be lived.
Then it began. The sea waters raced further and further away from the shore, until they formed a colossal wave wall towering above many of the island huts and seaside buildings. Curious onlookers were startled at this natural phenomenon and all but gasped in horror as the mighty seawaters unleashed their fury onto the helpless beaches. And when the flood waters receded, hundreds of thousands of people in eleven countries across the world were dead. Hundreds of thousands more were made homeless, and thousands of communities were completely eradicated from the face of the earth. It was a tragedy like no other.
As the international community struggled to pick up the pieces and to send relief teams into the areas most-affected by the calamity, the people around the world learnt a new word – tsunami, and how this war agent of nature could unleash such unparalleled destruction on the lives of the hundreds of thousands of helpless people. World leaders continued to argue over how much aid to provide and how best to deliver the aid, even as the tsunami survivors struggled just to live out another day. Many more stood at their doorsteps, waiting in vain for their loved ones and friends, who although still classified as missing, would never again return home.
Questions abounded – from mundane concerns such as “What to do if you think a tsunami is coming” to spiritual queries such as “Would a good God allow such terrible suffering to happen to innocent people?” For many who had put aside their comfortable life to help bury bodies in tsunami-stricken areas, the questions seemed to stare them in the face, even as they personally saw the dismembered body parts strewn around in a careless manner. Yet there were others who volunteered to counsel those who had suffered the psychological trauma of witnessing their family and friends perish before their very eyes; those who heard the questions “Why me?” or “Why am I the only one left behind?”
More than two weeks after the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami Calamity, these questions still remain unanswered, and for many people, they will always remain ethereal concerns, a past memory that would haunt them for many years to come. However, there are others, like me, who believe that what happened was a reminder from God that life on earth is temporary, and that we should focus on eyes on things that are eternal. Just two days after the tragedy, I was reminded in an ancient text from the Bible that all that had happened was predicted thousands of years ago.
You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginnings of birth pains.
- Matthew 24:6-8
Birth pains – the immense suffering a woman has to endure before she gives birth to her child. Those hours before birth are perhaps the most agonising that the human body has to endure; but when the baby is born, the joy she experiences is truly unimaginable. Such is how the end times will be. A period of intense suffering, as felt by those in agonising pain; but when the end comes, personified by the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the joy that we experience will be so much more unimaginable.
This
article was written by Mark Lim Shan-Loong on
14th January 2005.
in memory of those who died in the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami Calamity
Words from the Heart
