The Event ~ Tornados and Wealth

I'm sitting here today in stormy weather ~ hail, wind, pelting rain, tornado warnings.  It's wicked.  Started about 10 a.m. this morning and still going strong at 3:30 p.m.    It brings memories back of the two tornados that we already survived. 

The first back in 1977 in Bayard just a few months after we built our new house in Bayard.  Bouncing up the back stairs from getting bread out of the freezer in the basement, I glanced out the back door at the top of the stairs and said "Oh, look at that little tornado."  It was straight west of us in the distance, but it didn't stay little or distant for long.  Just before the big black noisy (like a train) ugly funnel was about to reach our house, it swerved it's nasty tail to the south and hit our labor house, equipment lot, hay stacks and pasture fence.  No one was hurt, but what a mess.

The second one was in 1993 north of Scottsbluff where we now live.  It hit at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon just as I was heading home from work.  The rain was so pelting I had to hang around the work foyer for awhile before leaving.  I looked straight down main street and saw the huge pure white funnel straight north of town.  I said to myself, "hm-m-m, that looks like it could be out in our area."

As I approached County Road H to turn left towards home, the road was blocked by an area resident who was not allowing traffic down the road due to downed power lines and trees.  She said to me, "You can't get home this way.  In fact, you probably don't have much left to get home to!"  I quickly took the dirt ditch road around to the north but couldn't get into my yard because of downed power lines.  But I was relieved to see our house still standing, but not our new shop or the barn.  One was twisted.  The other collapsed.  What a mess.

However, the greatest memory is the outpouring of friends and neighbors.  They came with trucks to load tree limbs, hammers and saws to cut wood and nail windows closed.  Janel's summer work crew of college kids at the Panhandle Station came and restacked all the hay bales that lay in a disheveled mess.  Our dear friends Doug and Lorraine Kizzire showed up at about 10 p.m. with a cooler full of subway sandwiches and pop.  The Red Cross was there with meals.  Business men and women from the Chamber's Ambassador Club came out and picked up litter and debree in our pasture and corn fields.  What a blessing these eventful friends were.  And then there was dear old Art Walker, an elderly gentlemen from our church.  He stopped at our house a few days later and handed us $200 to buy some new trees to replace those uprooted by the tornado. 

This tornado showed us how wealthy we are ~ not financially, but through the friends we have.  Sometimes we don't realize that true wealth are friends and family and blessings they bring, and really has nothing to do with financial well-being.  It takes an eventful tornado to remind us just how wealthy we really are! 

Also, it was a time of experiencing intervention from God in our lives.  Son Cash was 12 years old and spent his summer days helping the neighbor across the road  (whose buildings were destroyed) and taking care of his 4-H sheep in the barn (the one that collapsed) while Tim and I were at work in town.  But on that particular day, his Grandparents picked him up at noon and took him to help at their job site 20 miles away for the afternoon.   That is truly an intevention from God.  God took care of his safety when we didn't even have a clue!  In everything give thanks! Even after tornados!  An event to remember with praise and thanksgiving!

On a side note, Alexis and I share the same dreams (or are they nightmares?) of making friends with tornados that are approaching our territory.  Wierd!  Dreams are an event in life.  And sharing common dreams with my daughter is an event!