A balancing act

Well, I was hoping to update this more often, but I guess there's this thing called life that gets in the way sometimes.
This week has been a bit on the crazy side, starting the with the tornado that swept through Wichita on Saturday night. Living in the Midwest my entire life, I've never taken tornadoes quite as seriously as I did this past weekend. For awhile, Grant, Bandit and I were huddled up in a closet in our basement while we watched the radar predict that the tornado was coming straight at us. It eventually veered off toward Wichita, causing millions of dollars in damage, but the fright of the possibility stayed with me.

Search "wichita tornado damage" on Google Images for some humbling photos. I'm not sure what's copyrighted and don't want to inappropriately use any here.

Being the conversational (code word for "I love to talk and I'll probably ask you a million questions if you engage me in conversation") person that I am, I have been questioning people about the tornado all week.

It's interesting to hear the responses:
"I don't care; a tornado will never hit me."
"We drove X miles away to stay with our friends/family because we don't have a basement."
"We sat out on the porch to see what was happening."
"It didn't hit our house, but it was too close for comfort."
"I was in shelter for several hours."
One lady at Hobby Lobby told me that she wasn't worried about it, but she and her husband eventually started driving away from their house in East Wichita (no basement) to Andover. When they realized it was heading toward Andover, they just parked on the side of the road.
One of my friends had to leave her cats at home and was worried for them (that's sad to think about).

I've often thought that a balanced perspective gets me far in life. I trust God that He will take care of me and that my life truly is in His hands. Although, if I ignore warning signs and live my life as if nothing could ever befall me, I do believe that I will eventually find myself in an undesirable situation. There's got to a balance between blindly trusting God and watching out for my own safety.

AND, I would have to venture that it goes farther than merely staying safe from natural disasters. It's rather easy to take control of our lives. I mean, that's what human nature compels us to do: watch out for number one, make sure I get my share, keep all of my ducks in a row. I like to keep things orderly. I'm self-admittedly a neat freak. Piles drive me crazy. Even the organized ones. And yet my life becomes cluttered, driving up my anxiety until I spend days picking up all of the pieces. Or I just go to an organized room in the house and pretend that the rest of it looks like an issue of Better Homes and Gardens.

Don't get me wrong. There's nothing inherently sinful about keeping things neat and organized. Or being a little messy. Or saving money for a rainy day. Or spending some on that gadget (or purse, or shoes, or...) you've been eyeing. Or having a meticulously detailed planner. Or leaving your planner wide open. But, at the end of the day, do you rely more on yourself or your bank account than you do on God? Or do you leave life completely to chance, not taking much responsibility? It seems like most people I talked to about the tornado did one or the other: blindly trusting that they would be safe or freaking out that a tornado was even possible. Natural disasters bring out extreme responses, true. But what about the everyday? Where's the balance?

By the way, my sweet precious kitty got attacked by a stray tomcat this week. Her paw got split open and her leg was scratched in several places. I couldn't control that, either.

Kitty and I on graduation day, May 2011