After the EF-4 tornado hit Harvest on April 27, 2011, there was a house on Stovall Road where the survivors erected a hand-painted sign with the words, "GOD SAVED 6 PEOPLE HERE." It sat across the road from where a man died.
It's been two years, and that sign and its implications haven't stopped bothering me. At the time, I wondered what the family of the man who died made of it.
Personally, I'm pretty sure God had nothing to with anything that happened that day. Some people were just in the right place, others were in the wrong place, and it was all horribly arbitrary. If I had to go further, I'd say that geography, wind patterns, home selection, home construction, the National Weather Service, and probability did most of the saving that day. Regardless, there is never a situation where, "nah, God just likes me more than that 6-year-old crushed by her house," is an appropriate response. Even if you truly believe the dead would have been saved too if they'd prayed harder or gone to church more or "just listened to the Lord" when they bought their house or left work that day or whatever, it's just not something you say out loud.
Every time a disaster comes around, I just want to tell people, look, if you think God reached out His hands and saved you, fine. But if you feel compelled to say it....don't. Just don't. Especially not while they're still uncovering the bodies of children. If you have to say anything, stick to "I was lucky."
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