Which Hand do I Want to Hold?

I just read a disturbing article about the recent tornadoes touching down in so many states unbelievably being seen by it's author as "the fingers of God dragging across rural America". It actually brings me to tears as the picture of God's hand sweeping across our land destroying property and more significantly people forms in my mind. This is not the God I know. Who would want to grow close to such a One as this? What comfort could I ever receive from Him? Why would I ever want to hold this hand? When my own children did wrong, did I wreak havoc on their lives and destroy their possessions or do harm to them? Truthfully, the older they got, the more I cried in sorrow and pain. I think our Heavenly Father sheds more tears than we will ever know about. Didn't He send His own dear boy to our earth "so that no one need be destroyed", not to "point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was", but "to put the world right again"? He changed EVERYTHING, absolutely everything.  God's hand reaches down to put things back together, to comfort, to restore what has been destroyed, to heal and bring peace out of chaos, good out of bad, to still the storm not stir it up, to sit with us in our grief and bring hope for a better day. Creation was plunged into the same state as humanity, longing with us for the day when all will be restored, new and permanently wonderful. In fact, it's already begun. Let us speak about and do what Jesus spoke about and did when He walked the earth. No condemnation, no judgement, no hate. Lots of mercy, love, acceptance, helping, giving, compassion, acts of kindness, for "it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance", not an act of judgement by destruction. It is a new day. "The old has passed away, the new has come". This is the God I can come close to and tell others about. This hand, I can hold. And never let go.