The Earthquake

Last night we had the unexpected experience of having an earthquake here in good old Kansas.  We knew that there had been some earthquakes and aftershocks in Oklahoma over the past few days, especially on Saturday.  It was nearly 11:00 last night when we felt the earthquake here.  I was in the bathroom and was amazed at how shaky it was up on our upper level.  The shower doors were rattling and the whole house seemed to be moving.  It was a very helpless feeling!

Aaron was sitting up in his bed, reading like he does before he turns his light off.  The first thing I heard after the shaking stopped was, "Mom!  Mom!"  So I went into his bedroom and he wanted to know what had just happened.  I told him that we had an earthquake and he looked at me, speechless for a moment.  That's a first!  He was truly dumbfounded at this news.  Aaron has read about earthquakes; he's seen them on movies; and he's talked about them over and over again.  But he never dreamed that he'd actually experience one! 

He hopped out of bed then and followed me downstairs to talk to Gary.  "Dad!  We had an earthquake!"  And so we talked about it together, and looked on the news on TV, and fed all that info to Aaron so he could file it away - to talk about over and over and over.  He was really unnerved by it last night and kept saying, "So........will we get hit?"  I told him that we just did get hit.  "No, I mean will we get HIT?"  I finally figured out that he wanted to know if we would have a big earthquake, so I explained that we don't know that and how we can't look for an earthquake like we can look for a thunderstorm on radar.  He also wanted to know where the earthquake came from and I told him it was centered in Oklahoma - and so then his question was, "Did Oklahoma get hit?" 

It was interesting to follow his train of thought, and it was sad to see how scared he really was.  I knew he was a little reluctant to turn off his light and go to bed, but I assured him that God was with us.  God knew what would happen and He was in charge.  Aaron agreed with that and finally we were all able to settle down for the night. 

The earthquake will be something he'll talk about a lot over the next few days.  This afternoon he said, "Mom, today are we gonna have another earthquake feeling?"  And then later, when our neighbor and his son came to our door to sell Boy Scout popcorn, Aaron popped out the door and told the dad, "Hey, we had an earthquake last night!  Did you feel it?  Were you in the earthquake?" 

So get ready, Paradigm staff and anyone else who crosses Aaron's path over the next few days.  The earthquake is Aaron's new favorite, exciting topic!  He hasn't even talked about his upcoming birthday yet today!  There's still time, though. 

And like Aaron says, I do hope we don't have another earthquake feeling!!