It's been an awful spring for tornadoes. Again, our news coverage is filled with those all-too-familiar images of a city leveled and a death toll rising. This time, it's Joplin, Missouri.
The image they keep showing over and over came from a cell phone video shot in a convenience store, literally as the tornado was tearing that store apart. Miraculously, everyone survived. But they didn't think they would.
Most of the video shows pitch blackness, with an occasional flash of something flying by. It's the audio that's haunting. The screams, the outcries, the terror. A lady's voice repeatedly saying, "Jesus." And an "I love you."
That's the part that stuck out to me. Somewhere in the middle of that mayhem and brush with death, you hear this man's voice calling out, "I love you." That got to me.
It's a reminder that today is the only day we're sure we have to say those words. The Bible warns us, "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth" (Proverbs 27:1). You just can't count on tomorrow. A call from the scene of an accident. An embolism. A knock at the door. A sudden storm. It's not morbid - it's motivating - to remember that every person we love is just one heartbeat away from eternity. Not to live in fear, but to live without regrets.
If you appreciate someone, say it now. If you love someone, tell them now. If things are broken, fix them now. If there have been harsh words, apologize now. If there's anger in your heart, get rid of it now.
Write that letter. Make that call. Go see that person. Give that gift. Say that thank you. Grab that time together. Show them you love them.
Now.
In those desperate, tornado-surrounded voices, is a reminder, too, we need to call out to Jesus while there's still time. Because God has promised that "whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Romans 10:13). Saved from the penalty for hijacking our lives from Him. "Now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2).
As one man said after a deadly tornado in Oklahoma, "It made us remember that we all have an expiration date - and we don't know when it is." Now is all we know for sure.