the love for family

Last Wednesday our family of 5 and my dad squeezed ourselves into the only room in our house without windows, our tiny coat closet under our stairs.  What seemed then, and later was found to be true,  to be a never ending line of tornadoes was literally destroying Northern Alabama.  Later as we lost power and gathered around a battery operated radio, we listened as tornado after tornado carved a path through the same towns... Madison, Toney, Meridianville.... I have brothers and a sister and their families that live in those towns.  Why were there so many tornadoes, why do they continue to come the same way.  Literally for hours we could do nothing but listen to what was happening on the other side of our county... my family and so very many friends were repeatedly in harms way.  I am a born and raised Southern gal.  Tornadoes are a fact of life here.  I have lived through two extremely close calls before, I just could not wrap my brain around the sheer number of tornadoes that caused the sirens to scream for hours.  I pray I never have to experience that fear again in my lifetime.

So I sit here one week later and we finally have power again... our power plant was hit by one of the tornadoes.  I have spoken to each family member.  I have cried and cried for three of my  brothers and their families.  Thankfully their families are physically safe.  The damage to their homes and cars can be repaired.  Yet the damage to one of their neighborhoods and the death of neighbors was so tremendous that my brother Jared's actual street was listed on the radio today as the street with the most property damage in our county.  So sad for all those families that are homeless... and here I sit so minimally inconvenienced by the loss of electrical power.

Thankful that while I sat here in my home one week ago... so literally helpless, that I had prayer.  So thankful that before going to bed that night we had received confirmation that all my family members were at least alive... though terribly shaken, with long roads ahead of them.  Thankful for the knowledge that those that did lose loved ones have a Savior that will pour comfort down upon them.  Thankful.