THREE YEARS AGO
Early this morning about 4 o'clock our old, black Lab, Tracker, woke us up in a frenzy which about 30 minutes later we realized was due to an impending thunderstorm. Within 30 minutes I was sleepily putting his sedatives in a strawberry pop tart (his favorite snack). The thunder and lightning came with a fury and he paced and panted until Sue got out of bed and got on the couch before he would lay down and let the sedatives take effect.
We had an extra long winter down south and hardly any of our usual turbulent spring weather to date, although we are expecting it for the next 3 days. Even though it's a way of life for us here in the south, today I am particularly mindful of this month and day 3 years ago. April 15, 2011 was the day a tornado touched down in our town of Clinton, but spared the daycare where Sue worked as she watched the approaching tornado literally lift off the ground and pass over the church with no damage except for busted windshields in the parking lot. The 2 hours it took to finally make my way to my wife and those children seemed like a bad dream.
That same bad dream reappeared on April 27. Little did we imagine what we were in store for when we woke up that day. Many communities in Mississippi experienced extensive damage from a record number of tornadoes, especially the town of Smithville. I was home that afternoon and watching everything unfold on television. Late that afternoon an image I will never forget appeared on my tv screen. That was the video of huge tornado heading for downtown Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama campus, where our son, Payne, was a student. The next several hours were spent pacing the floor, trying to make contact on the cellphone, praying, and making calls to others who had children there as well. We began to get reports that others had heard from their kids and they were safe but we still hadn't heard from Payne. I'll always be grateful for my friend, A.G. Helton of Yazoo City, who had heard from his daughter that she was fine. He called and offered to get his plane and go with me to Tuscaloosa to search. As any parent would, I felt that if I could just get there I could find him. It seemed like an eternity before we received the text that said he was okay. During those hours as I saw the pictures of the aftermath, I thought of the thousands of parents everywhere who were going through the same desperate feelings - true feelings of absolute helplessness. Only later would we truly know the true scope of the lives that were affected by this massive storm. I am grateful that my son and his roommates along with the other students we knew were spared that afternoon. The things they saw as they tried to help others in the aftermath are surely things that will remain etched in their minds forever. For me, it took several months to shake the feelings that I had from those two experiences.
So today we remember those who experienced loss of loved ones and possessions during that historic outbreak of tornadoes. We stand in amazement at the beauty and the violence of nature.
We cannot understand why, but we must trust in our Lord Jesus Christ and through it all we can sing the words of the Matt Redman song, "Blessed Be Your Name."
"He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away,
My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be Your Name."
Early this morning about 4 o'clock our old, black Lab, Tracker, woke us up in a frenzy which about 30 minutes later we realized was due to an impending thunderstorm. Within 30 minutes I was sleepily putting his sedatives in a strawberry pop tart (his favorite snack). The thunder and lightning came with a fury and he paced and panted until Sue got out of bed and got on the couch before he would lay down and let the sedatives take effect.
We had an extra long winter down south and hardly any of our usual turbulent spring weather to date, although we are expecting it for the next 3 days. Even though it's a way of life for us here in the south, today I am particularly mindful of this month and day 3 years ago. April 15, 2011 was the day a tornado touched down in our town of Clinton, but spared the daycare where Sue worked as she watched the approaching tornado literally lift off the ground and pass over the church with no damage except for busted windshields in the parking lot. The 2 hours it took to finally make my way to my wife and those children seemed like a bad dream.
That same bad dream reappeared on April 27. Little did we imagine what we were in store for when we woke up that day. Many communities in Mississippi experienced extensive damage from a record number of tornadoes, especially the town of Smithville. I was home that afternoon and watching everything unfold on television. Late that afternoon an image I will never forget appeared on my tv screen. That was the video of huge tornado heading for downtown Tuscaloosa and the University of Alabama campus, where our son, Payne, was a student. The next several hours were spent pacing the floor, trying to make contact on the cellphone, praying, and making calls to others who had children there as well. We began to get reports that others had heard from their kids and they were safe but we still hadn't heard from Payne. I'll always be grateful for my friend, A.G. Helton of Yazoo City, who had heard from his daughter that she was fine. He called and offered to get his plane and go with me to Tuscaloosa to search. As any parent would, I felt that if I could just get there I could find him. It seemed like an eternity before we received the text that said he was okay. During those hours as I saw the pictures of the aftermath, I thought of the thousands of parents everywhere who were going through the same desperate feelings - true feelings of absolute helplessness. Only later would we truly know the true scope of the lives that were affected by this massive storm. I am grateful that my son and his roommates along with the other students we knew were spared that afternoon. The things they saw as they tried to help others in the aftermath are surely things that will remain etched in their minds forever. For me, it took several months to shake the feelings that I had from those two experiences.
So today we remember those who experienced loss of loved ones and possessions during that historic outbreak of tornadoes. We stand in amazement at the beauty and the violence of nature.
We cannot understand why, but we must trust in our Lord Jesus Christ and through it all we can sing the words of the Matt Redman song, "Blessed Be Your Name."
"He gives and takes away, He gives and takes away,
My heart will choose to say, Lord, blessed be Your Name."
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