366 Days of Gratefulness ~ Day 61

Friday our area was under tornadoes warnings off and on all day.  I am normally not fearful of storms, but I started getting anxious about these on Thursday.  The forecast promised the day would be volatile.  Just days before tornadoes hit in a couple of surrounding counties and 3 people lost their lives.  The weathermen were saying that Friday would be worse.

Sadly, they were correct.

An unexpected storm cell popped up Friday morning, and it sent me into complete hysterics!

I heard the weatherman say a rotation would be going over the community where Nathan teaches and the girls go to school.  He said it would be there in approximately 10 minutes.

About the same time I received a text from Sara, "Be careful.  I love you!!"

Just those five words showed me she was terrified.

So was I.  So I prayed ... and cried ... and prayed some more ... and cried.

It was tearing me apart that Sara was alone.  Well, she was with 300 other people, but she wasn't with her daddy or me.  Hannah was near Nathan, but Sara was across the road in a different school.  Nathan felt as awful as I did and almost just went and got her, but then we realized it was safer for them to stay put.  Besides, the schools were on lockdown.

We are grateful that storm passed over without any damage.  Schools dismissed shortly after that.  I was so grateful to have us all together.  We headed to my mom's before the next round of storms started.  Her house is safer than ours ... and I hadn't seen her since Christmas.

We waited out the storms, and we were just about to head home when we got word a tornado had hit the opposite end of our county.  Many lost their homes, but praise the Lord no one lost their life.  I have only seen the damage in pictures and from videos.  It's a miracle no one lost their life in that area.

A tornado also hit the town where my friend Robyn lives.  They are still trying to recover there from a tornado that just hit months ago.  Friday night's tornado came very close to her house, and I am so grateful they were not harmed.

I am so grateful for the Lord's protection that night.