5 minute read
Wisdom Begins with a Word
by Carol Castillo
(Editor's Note: The following in an article that was run in The Newsvine in 2012. We decided to run it again as the holidays can be a challenging time for many people. Get a cup of coffee, sit yourself down, and take a deep breath. Everything is going to be all right. God's got your situation. He's not going to be caught unaware. You'll get through this. Let this article be an encouragement to you. And as Sister Castillo told her family, "Don't worry. We'll make it with God's help." And you know, with God's help them did, and you will, too.)
Breaking the WORRY Habit
My mother had an expression for it. “Majoring in the minors,” she said. Or, “Making mountains out of molehills.” Either way, she was right. My worry habit was more than a habit; it was a career. I fretted that the twinge of pain in my chest signaled heart trouble. When it rained I worried about flooding. If the car made strange noises, I got nervous. My busy life offered multiple opportunities to push the panic button. And if things went well, I worried about that, too.
As a Christian I knew what the Bible had to say about worry. “Be anxious for nothing.” I also knew God had it all under control. I just couldn’t shake the conviction that He needed my help. And no sermon or Bible verse could change my mind. It took a major earthquake to shake me up, literally, and break the worry habit that beset me for so long.
Living in California, I knew the threat of earthquake always lurked beneath the surface. Surprisingly, I didn’t worry about. We lived in the Central Valley, away from most major, active fault lines, and I had only felt two slight tremors.
Earthquake!
On October 17, 1989, I was at home relaxing on the bed after work; my husband was cleaning up from his job at a rock quarry. Our daughter was doing homework, and our little boy played at her feet. In the San Francisco Bay Area, 65 miles to the west, thousands were gathering at Candlestick Park for the World Series between the Oakland A’s and the San Francisco Giants. Many of my co-workers were there. The time was 5:04 p.m.
I heard a noise like a roaring freight train, then felt a sharp jolt and the waterbed nearly pitched me to the floor. “Earthquake!” I shouted. Both children bolted into the bedroom to find me, and my husband joined us. Together we huddled under an interior doorway. The floor shifted and swayed ominously under our feet. I met my husband’s eyes. “It’s a bad one,” he said.
When the rolling stopped, I immediately turned on the radio. “The Bay Bridge has collapsed!” yelled an excited announcer. Meanwhile a live feed from Candlestick Park beamed pandemonium across the nation as players and fans raced across the field in search of safety. Like the rest of the country I watched and listened in horror as the tragedy unfolded.
While my family and I huddled under the doorway, another family 80 miles west in the Santa Cruz Mountains had done the same. When it was over, the man of the house stepped out his front door to find his yard split like a crushed melon. Meanwhile a mother in San Francisco carrying her baby to the changing table never made it. The top floors in the apartment collapsed, sending mother and son in a deadly slide of rubble to the garage below. On the busy Cypress Freeway in Oakland, a car driven by a mother taking her children to the dentist was crushed and buried when the top section of the freeway buckled. And on the Bay Bridge, emergency workers unwittingly herded cars to danger, not realizing the top section had broken off leaving a gaping 50 foot hole. The first car in line carried a man who had just been picked up from the airport by his sister. The car hit the breach and bounced, smashed into the opposite side and then dangled tenuously, saved from falling into the bay only by its rear wheels. Helplessly the man watched his sister draw her last breath.
Reports of death and damage continued to pour in. For weeks my attention was riveted by the drama. My co-workers returned to work unhurt but shaken, and said it took four hours just to get out of the parking lot. I heard first-hand tales of fires, broken utility lines, demolished homes and cars. But nothing tore my heart more than the fate of those entombed beneath the Cypress Freeway. For three weeks rescue workers continued to dig victims from cars smashed flat by the crumbled concrete and twisted girders. How horrible, I thought, to have met such a tragic end while doing nothing more than going about their daily business. And I grasped the fragility of life, and how each moment is a gift from God to be treasured, not wasted.
Weeks later my husband was laid off. Construction work is seasonal and we had experienced other lay-offs, but it was particularly wrenching during the holiday season. On hearing the news, the usual anxieties and fears clamored for attention. Then I remembered the Cypress Freeway. Given the choice, its victims would have preferred a holiday lay-off to being ignominiously crushed beneath the foot of fate. But they had no opportunity to choose their fate. They had run out of something I still had. Time.
I took a deep breath and smiled at my family. “Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll make it with God’s help.”
And with God’s help, we did.
