Well, we did end up going in the closet for about 20 minutes just after midnight last night. Apparently a tornado had been spotted, on the ground, about 20 miles from here, headed our direction. That rattled the nerves a bit. Before, when we would go down in the shelter, it was just sort of a matter-of-fact thing we did. The basement was large, there were chairs, we just sat, and waited out what ever was (or wasn't) going over. This time, there was a new urgency and a keen awareness of what the storm could hold, and a palpable fear. We had prayer and I played some calming music on my i-pod. The power went out. It was tight quarters, and stuffy. People were half asleep, so not as cooperative as might have been nice, but who is worried about 'nice' at that point? The most frightening thing for me was that just as I was sending half-asleep Mayahna and Tommy into the closet under the stairs, I heard the house creaking! That was a little TOO familiar for MY taste. But I did soon realize that the creaking was just Annie, walking around upstairs, waking Emma and Ricky for them to come down. Ricky was not easy to wake and convince of the need to come get in the closet. He doesn't tend to want to do anything Annie tells him to do, anyway, let alone when he has just been woken up. But we did all get there, and hunker down for about 15-20 minutes, until they gave us the all clear on the phone. With the power out, and thus the internet connection not working, that was a nice feature to have, probably the best four-dollar app I've bought!
We came out just after 12:15, but some were not willing to go sleep in their own rooms, as they wanted to be closer to the closet in case we needed to go in (not sure how that is going to work when the storm shelter is installed in the garage!). Tommy had fallen back asleep, back in the very back of the closet, so we just left him there, to sleep the rest of the night right where he was. He was a tad confused this morning when he woke up in such a strange place. Ricky slept on the couch, just outside the closet. Mayahna and Emma slept with me (the closet door is just outside my bedroom door). We did get to sleep pretty quickly, amazingly, I guess because we knew the phone would wake us up if we needed to go back in. The lights came back on at about 2, I got up, turned everything off that we had left on, and went back to bed and back to sleep.
I looked at the news, briefly, this morning, and didn't see anything about tornado damage that took place last night. Though, when Lon called just now, he said he had heard there were trees down in Limestone county (our new county) I'm guessing it's out in that area west of Athens, where the twister was spotted last night. Glad it was small, and didn't stay on the ground too long. Glad the storm season is almost over. Glad that God answered the prayers of our family and many others who were praying for us, that we did not have to repeat our experience of four weeks ago.
Annie did ask, as we were heading for the closet, "If we get hit again, are we moving back to the NW?" I had to answer honestly: "The thought HAS crossed my mind!" Though, honestly, where is a safe place to be? There isn't one, in case you have not noticed! This world is not a safe place. AND - it is NOT our home!!!
There will be thunderstorms throughout the day today, and into tomorrow. But they are saying it will be nothing 'organized enough' to produce severe weather. It will give us plenty of opportunity to exercise our faith muscles, though! Some of the thunder that happened last night, after we came out of the closet, was pretty amazing thunder - it rolled on and on and on, and it rattled the house. I never could keep my eyes open long enough to watch for the lightening and count to see how far away it was. It's rumbling out there right now, too. I think the rest that Sabbath brings this week, because it will come at the end of two stormy days, will be a VERY welcome rest. Similar to the rest we will receive when Christ comes to rescue us from this mess of a world we live in. Looking forward to that day, more and more!
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