I Will Praise You in This Storm

First of all, I want to thank you to all of you who called, text, and checked on us! We greatly appreciate it! We just got Internet last night, so I thought I would take the opportunity to share a few things.

We were very blessed in this storm.

I was in the middle school when this storm came through. Luckily the students were able to quickly eat and get in the hall before this storm hit. It got a little scary, and there was some damage to the high school next door.

When we started getting reports of the damage in our community, they said that Little Lones was destroyed. I take Little Lones to get out of our neighborhood to go the back way to school. I did not know what I was coming home to, and had already decided that all I really needed was Ken and Tootsie.

Luckily, we only had a tree fall on our back fence ...

which Tootsie now thinks it is her own forest that she continually explores. She can also swim in the creek any time she wants due to the fence being down. I think that I have dried her off about 3 times just yesterday! 

Our elderly neighbors, whom we adore, were not as lucky. They had a tree fall on their house. Although, it did not go all the way through, there is a small limb in their bedroom.

They decided to leave to go to their daughter's home in Tanner. Within 15 minutes of getting their they huddled in the hall, "hugging so tightly," and emerged from the home only to find it destroyed. 

The only car that would work was theirs. She said she knew why they were there. The windows had been blown out, but they managed to leave only to pull off the road again due to another wall cloud coming their way. 

They managed to finally get to a hotel room, in which the mangers let them stay for free. 

My neighbor said, "These are the times when good comes out of people."

So true.

This is how bad the wind got at our house 

Tootsie just wanted to stay by the door most of the day when we finally got home.

This is not a tree. It is a limb that has been lodged in the ground. When I was picking up limbs yesterday, a lot of them were lodged in the ground.

Notice how this iris is turned inside out.

This one was about a foot away from the other ...

After accessing the damage we found this ....

No matter what, life goes on ...

Although we haven't had power since Wednesday, luckily Ken was prepared to already have a generator that he wired up. It is running our fridge, deep freeze, TV, and select other things. I have to unplug the fridge to make my coffee, so you learn very quickly what you can and cannot do. We can't use the microwave or the stove top, so we have been grilling everything.

Who knew you could make macaroni and cheese on the grill?

"The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble." Psalm 9:9

This was my reading this morning, and it is so true. We are very, very thankful for what we have. Please continue to pray for those that lost everything. I cannot imagine what they must be going through.

On Monday, I will share all that I have learned to survive in this storm. For now, I still have one more closet to clean out so that I can take clothes to those that need it as well as clean up all those sticks in the yard!

Happy Saturday!