I received a phone call from my nephew yesterday. He wanted to tell me about the fires near Spokane, Washington.
As he described what he was seeing, the only word I could find was unimaginable.
Until then, the closest image I had was from the film Fire in Paradise. Even that disaster became more imaginable only after my wife and I spoke with an insurance adjuster who had spent time in Paradise during the early days of the fire. His stories gave faces to what had previously been only headlines.
Then I heard my nephew's voice.
The fire became more vivid. More personal. More real.
We live surrounded by catastrophes, yet only a few ever come close enough to touch our own lives. We grieve the distant ones. We pray for those who suffer. But when tragedy reaches someone we know, it asks something more of us. Compassion becomes less an idea than a shared burden.
Later that day I heard a favorite song, Show Me Your Face. It recalls the conversation between Moses and God, though it never mentions the burning bush. Even so, I could not help thinking of it.
God was there.
In moments like these, God can seem painfully absent. Yet many who pass through great suffering speak instead of discovering a closeness they had never known before. Crisis has a way of exposing what we truly trust.
But perhaps the greater question is not where God is in catastrophe.
Perhaps the greater question is where God is on an ordinary Tuesday.
In the quiet routines of life, where nothing dramatic happens, faith can become harder to notice. We seldom ask where God is when the day unfolds as expected. We simply move on.
I wonder if those quiet moments ask as much of our faith as the extraordinary ones.
Not because God is less present.
But because we are.
© 2026 Tim George. All rights reserved.
Shared Tomatoes
Stories, reflections, and books for noticing the grace carried in small things.