So, it's been a few weeks since I've written. There is a reason for that. Two weeks ago Darlene asked me to share my testimony as the 'speaker' for church this week, so I've been busy processing and preparing for that. In the process of getting that all organized in my head, and also visiting with Mike and Darlene this afternoon, when they came to our house for lunch, I realized there were a few things that I had inadvertently left out of the blog.
One was the harp. One of the first things I tended to when we first came upstairs after the storm was to get the piano covered up, and the harp picked up (it was laid over on it's side) and moved downstairs where it would be safer and dryer until we could get back to pick things up. When I picked it up, and carried it downstairs (it's a smaller, folk harp, thankfully, not a BIG pedal harp) I heard and felt a sloshing coming from inside the sound box. But we were still in 'rush around and get as much covered as possible' mode, so I didn't take time to tend to it - getting the water out was going to be no simple task, because there are only small holes in the back of the sound box, only just big enough to get your hand in. I mentioned to Emma that there seemed to be water in it, and apparently she stuck a towel down in there, but the towel was soon needed for something else, and she did not finish the job.
The next day, when we went back to retrieve things, it was one of the first things we brought up from the basement - it was already completely dry inside, even though it sat in the basement, where there was water all over the floor. We had put it up on a pallet, but still! HOW did it get COMPLETELY dry??
Now - before I tell you the next part - it will help to have a picture in your mind of the living room, if you have never seen it. (if you have, you can skip to the next paragraph) It had a vaulted ceiling, with a large fireplace at one end - there were four large windows on either side of the fireplace, two on each side. The bottom ones were about 7 feet tall and several feet wide, running all the way to the corners of the room on either side, above each of them was a second window, several more feet tall, and angled to match the roof-line. Beside those window, in the side walls of the room were two doors, facing out, in opposite directions, onto the deck that ran all around the back of the house. Those doors also had large glass panels in them.
Several days after the storm - in an evening, when we were at Mike and Darlene's place, we suddenly realized, "hey, wait, the grill, that was sitting out on the deck before the storm - just outside the glass door that the harp was sitting next to, inside - that grill was found inside the house, in the middle of the living room floor. Since we were not at the house when we realized this we wondered how in the world it got there, without seriously bashing the harp on the way through? So the next day, when we were at the house we checked things out. The glass, of that door, was intact (one of very few glass panels in the house that were left intact) the glass, just around the corner from that door, beside the fireplace, was also intact - however the glass above that, more than 7 feet off the floor, had a large, oval hole in it about the size of the grill (it's one of those Weber, portable grills, about three feet across and two feet high, and front-to-back). So, it had apparently taken flight, and flown in through THAT window, around the corner from where it had been sitting, rather than through the one that it was sitting right next to, thus flying OVER the harp, rather than through it. The harp did lay over on it's side, and it did have one broken foot (an easily replaced piece) and a couple of broken strings, but other than that, all the damage it sustained, including any water damage we fully expected it to have, was completely surface damage, not structural damage!! It is being easily repaired at the harp teachers' house, right now, until Emma gets home from camp in a few weeks and starts her lessons back up. What a blessing.
Lon's guitar, on the other hand, did not fare so well. The master bedrooms really seems to have taken quite a bit of the brunt of things. There seemed to be the most plant/insulation/dirt/gunk matter splattered all over in there. Just about a week ago I was looking back through some photos, and noticed a picture that was snapped the first time we went back to the house. The bed, which was a sleep-number bed, sitting on a wooden platform was there in the picture, but no sheets, blankets, pillows, or even the dust ruffle, were there. This was the type of dust ruffle that has a solid panel of fabric that was designed to lay on top of the box spring, covering the whole surface of the box springs, and the mattress lays on top of that. It was just gone. Plywood platform: still there, mattress: still there, dust ruffle: sucked out from between the two of them! Most of the bedding was out on the deck, just outside of our bedroom, covered in glass shards and debris. I'm not sure I ever saw the dust ruffle though. Crazy.
Lon's guitar was resting in a stand in our bedroom and it was pretty badly demolished. From now on, when we are under storm watch, all instruments go in their cases. Had his guitar been in it's case, it probably would have been fine. Especially if it was in a closet.
Michael did say something today that sort of took me aback at first, but he is so right. Anyone caught in the up-stairs of our house would not have survived. It's true. There was so much glass and lumber and general debris flying around and being embedded into things, survival would have been difficult. Several people have said that what they heard at first was that 'all the windows and doors were blown out' etc. So their thought was, "ok - board up the windows, and well get a locksmith right out to re-secure the doors..." Hearing that, and then going to the house... two completely different pictures! Even seeing pictures really does not do it justice. It really looked as if a pressure bomb went off inside the house. It really is a miracle that the house stood. There is one neighbor who is pretty certain that the house is actually twisted on it's foundation, not just shifted to the side, but twisted in place. It is also interesting to note that some things flew away from the house and some things flew towards the house. It is entirely possible that the very center of the tornado went directly over us. The tremendous pressure we all felt in our ears, down there in the basement would also attest to that. If that is the case then, in my mind, the only reason the house stood is because there was direct intervention from God. That is my personal theory. I'm not sure what to do with Doug and Nans' house - they are Godly people too, why was their home destroyed and ours saved? Maybe, with no human life in there... I don't pretend to be God, but I do know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God was there, with us, protecting us from the ruin that COULD have been wrought on us by this storm. Not only did He protect our lives, he protected our stuff. We did not have renter's insurance. Yet most of our most valuable possessions were protected and saved.
From a very young age tornadoes have been a pretty big fear of mine. (Snakes were another one - Before we moved to Thailand I told God- "if there is ever a snake in our house - I'm on the next plane home") I always knew that I simply could NOT live in a tornado-prone area. When we came out to visit, and check the place out before we moved here, there had been a tornado that very week, and Mike and Darlene (that was who invited us home from church that first week that we visited) took us over to the area that had been hit - just a few blocks from their house!! Yet, somehow, once we got here, God gave me tremendous peace about it all. Every time there was a watch or a warning, we would just treat it sort of like a fire drill. Head down into the basement and wait it out... etc. Even I did not understand entirely why I was so peaceful about it all - it didn't make sense with how much I had feared tornadoes growing up. The first warning we had when we first got here did put me a bit on edge, but after that, they were just a matter of coarse. Perhaps it was partly the 'momma bear' thing, since I knew that Tommy had a pretty big fear in that area too, and that if I let any of my fear show it would only fan his flames. I don't know. But I do know that there was a peace that passed all understanding. Even during the storm it's self.
It is interesting, now, to think about other fears that I have (including the thought of ever having to go through this again!!) and start to get tense and then think about how God has been so much in this with us, so much there for us, providing for our needs, blessing us, bringing us through what we thought would be one of the worst things that could happen to a family. And to realize that those fears are not needed. Just leave it with God. He took care of us in the storm, I know I can trust Him with all of the other fears that I have in my heart too. That is a pretty big thing for me to say, because trust has not, historically, been an area where God and I have been on the same page. This storm has definitely taught me that I CAN... DEFINITELY trust God. What a blessing!!!
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