Anita Mathias: Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

God in the cracks: A year in an earthquake zone: Christchurch, New Zealand. (Guest Post by Claudia McFie)

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Beauty among the ruins
Photo by Ross Becker, photographer 


24 February 2011, I was sitting beside a rural road near Christchurch, New Zealand, hugging my knees to my chest and trying to cry.
Two days earlier I had been running for my life as my city came crashing to the ground around me.  For the first two days I’d been concentrating so much on survival – walking 2 hours home, part of the way barefoot, then boiling rainwater we’d collected for using in the garden so we had something to drink, walking 5km to the only supermarket that was open to buy milk and bread.  


On this day, the emotions finally started catching up with me.
I sat surrounded by open fields and empty sky, yet every time I closed my eyes all I could see was the wall of a three story building toppling towards me in slow motion.  There is still gritty dust through my hair, ears and fingernails.  There is still no water supply, so no chance to wash, only hand sanitiser. 
Sitting beside that farm gate, my guts ached with grief.  It was a raw, bleeding, empty kind of feeling, like some part of my soul had been ripped out.  I was seeking solitude to cry and pray, but tears wouldn’t come, all I had was an aching pressure behind my eyes and a tightness in my chest.
I tried to pray, but words wouldn’t come, and all I could feel was the pain in my spirit.  All my mind can do is replay again and again my mind replayed the jolty jerky feeling in my stomach as the ground lurched beneath me. 
                                                                 * * *
I remembered a day in my late teens, more than 20 years ago, when I had also sought solitude, this time walking and sitting beside a river.  There I had prayed for the first time, “God, I can’t do this.  I’ve made a mess of my life, so I’m handing my life over to you.”  A promise came into my mind “Don’t be afraid.  I will never leave you or forsake you.  No matter where you go or what happens I will never leave you.
In February 2011 I couldn’t connect to God’s presence, but I held onto the promise that he was still with me, carrying me through this valley of the shadow of death.    Everything else has stripped away, but I cling onto Faith.
Since September 2010, my city has been experiencing an ongoing seismic event.  Some 10,000 aftershocks, 41 of them have been greater than magnitude 5.  The most recent “big” one was a magnitude 6 on 23 December 2011.  Even as I’m writing this I feel a vibration rumble past beneath me.  I inhale and my stomach clenches, then it passes. (That was a magnitude 3.4, at 3km depth about 10km south of my house).  Prior to September 2010, there had not been any significant earthquakes in the region for more than a century.
The past year, I’ve experienced the anxiety of going about life, never sure when the “next one” will come.  I would go into shopping malls, and scan around to work out where the best “safe place” would be.  I avoid brick walled buildings, crossing the street if I need to.
I’ve experieced watching the cranes and diggers and “munchers” demolish my city.  Nearly 1400 commercial buildings either have been or are being deconstructed, many of them heritage buildings.  The Cathedral that was the heart of my City lies in ruins, as the debate continues among both believers and non-believers for its future. 6,500 homes in the suburbs have been abandoned, the land unable to be rebuilt on.  Others still await the assessment of their fate.
As the days and weeks went by.  The tears came in their time, and I learned to grieve and lament.  But prayer remained beyond my reach.  I offered my tears as prayers, but the emptiness within me remained.  “I know there is more than this.  I’ve experienced God’s presence in the past, and I long to find that again.”
And the quakes kept coming.
Winter came, and our house was not weathertight – our chimney had collapsed leaving us without heating, and our roof covered by a tarpaulin.  Rainwater dripped through the ceiling.I was so thankful that our chimney was replaced by a steel flue and our woodburner repaired in time for the “once in 50 years” blizzard that hit mid year.  A month later we lived through a “once in 70 years” snow storm.
I strived to pray.  I tried to find my soul again, but the sense of connecting with God was simply not there.  I still felt hollow, like a part of me was missing.  Then I realised I was trying to find God with my own effort.  It’s like trying to pull myself up with my shoelaces.  “Lord, I can’t do this.  Only you can.  I’m letting go.  I am here, and I trust you.”
I was burnt out and exhausted.  I had run out of “cope”.  I went to work, I looked after my children, then once they were in their beds I would curl up on the sofa or on my bed.  I’d try to lose myself in reading fiction.  Anywhere but the here and now.  I didn’t even want to log onto my computer.  I stopped writing and blogging.  Everyone else I spoke to in Christchurch was experiencing the same kind of fatigue.
Recovery has come slowly.  It has taken over a year since that day beside the rural road.  Counselling has helped, as has asking as many people as I can to please pray for me.  The difference came as I found myself space to be quiet and still.  As I stopped trying to pray, I just sat and waited.  “I am here, Lord.”  In the stillness, I started to feel the smallest flicker, no more than a whisper of life within my spirit again.  I found that I could pray again, and feel the response within my spirit again.
2012 is the year my city will begin its rebuild.  It will never be the same as it was before the earthquakes, and tears come as I write that sentence, but what it will be is stronger, and better.  My life will never be the same again, but God has stayed true to his promise.  He never left me, and I know I will come through this stronger and better.
How you can help Christchurch recover:
1.     Pray.  Pray for those who grieve for the 185 lives lost on 22nd February 2011.  Pray for the injured, who are still recovering.  Pray for those traumatised, the emotional wounds that for many are still raw.  Those burnt out and exhausted. Pray for those struggling with insurance issues, and uncertaintity about their future.
2.     Donations can be made through:
*  The Christchurch Earthquake Mayoral Relief Fund  provides funding toward projects that contribute to the rebuilding of the social and physical infrastructure of Christchurch following the earthquakes.
*  The Red Cross 2011 Christchurch Earthquake Appeal is focused on welfare issues providing emergency & hardship grants as well as bereavement grants.
* The Christchurch Earthquake Appeal (NZ Government) will help rebuild those things that are at the heart of Christchurch communities, the places and services that make a city worth living in; community facilities which took decades of fundraising to put in place, such as sports fields, parks, community buildings and historic buildings, which were ruined within hours.
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Claudia McFie
Claudia is a working mother of three children (aged 3, 5 and 8) living in Christchurch New Zealand.  She started blogging in 2010 as Adulcia – Beneath the Surface.  You can see news footage of her experiences in the Christchurch Earthquake of 22nd February 2011 here. 
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  2. I am so glad to have discovered your blog and to see this video which was a new one to me. My sons have lived through the whole 10,000+ quakes, and I have visited several times recently as one son developed a cancer tumour-who know what causes this- but stress can be a factor, for sure.
    Thanks for sharing- it is good to be reminded to pray for the people still living in damaged homes with damaged lives, and those who grieve for lost loved ones.
    God Bless you. Mary, Wellington.

  4. This picture (and post) makes my heart break…the horrible scary stuff of life can just be so painful beautiful. Love and prayers, for real–I will be praying for you all.

  5. SO pleased to see Claudia write this – she has captured it beautifully. As a fellow Christchurch resident, I know what she is saying and as we are perpetually described as “staunch Cantabrians”, filled with resilience – I can assure you, many people are struggling and need a lot of support to cope with the impact the major and ongoing quakes have had on their lives.