The Kitchen Light on Crawford Street

Margaret Holloway kept her porch light on during every storm. Her grandchildren knew this. When thunder cracked over their neighborhood in Joplin, Missouri, and the sky turned that sickly green, they didn't wait for instructions. They ran three houses down to Grandma Holloway's, bare feet slapping wet pavement, and pushed through her screen door without knocking.

She was always already there. Coffee brewing. Quilts pulled from the cedar chest. Her old transistor radio tuned to the weather station. She never panicked. She never wrung her hands. She simply gathered them in, pressed their wet heads against her apron, and said the same thing every time: "You're with me now. We're going to be just fine."

The tornado of 2011 leveled half of Joplin. It took the Dairy Queen and the high school and 158 lives. But that basement on Crawford Street held. And when the Holloway children climbed out into a world rearranged beyond recognition, the first thing they saw was their grandmother, already sweeping glass off the front steps.

Nahum preached to a people surrounded by the fury of Assyrian empire. But tucked into his oracle of judgment, he planted this: "The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him." Not a distant good. Not an abstract safety. A porch light left on. A door that doesn't require knocking. A Presence already waiting when you arrive.