Tornado Memories - Part 3 (Lessons Learned & Before and After Photos)

I realize that my tornado posts are really detailed. I just wanted to document for myself (and share with you, if you were interested) memories of the event.


Here's a neat photo from the back of our house after the tornado. The birdhouse and birdfeeder seem to have not been touched but the laundry room is collapsing behind it. :)


Just to try to wind it up, it was an amazing time of seeing God using people as His hands and feet helping others. The entire week after the tornado you would see strangers in our neighborhood helping people in any way they could. One day we had people we didn't know walk up to us with pizza and bottled water and ask us if we'd had lunch. When we said we'd already eaten they went down the road to our neighbors. The Red Cross had what looked like an ice cream truck going around all during the day giving out water, coffee, juice, Chickfila sandwiches, just a variety of food to help people out. It was just unreal. All week long my house was full of people (mostly from our church as well as family and friends) helping clean up, pack, providing food for those who were there, etc. I even had a friend drive from an hour and a half away just to help me unpack at the rental house (and we were unpacked in less than a day).

We ended up living in a rental house for 4 1/2 months while our house was being fixed. (By the way, please know that we really didn't receive near the damage that a lot of people did. So many houses were completely destroyed - and yet not one death. God is so good!) The rental house was nice but we were so thankful to get home. Our house ended up with a tornado ordered remodel. :) We have a new garage & laundry room, a new kitchen (floor to ceiling), new flooring throughout the house, new doors, new windows, new roof, & new a/c unit. R reran all the duct work throughout the house and we painted all the back bedrooms and bathrooms (which required removing 1978 wallpaper!). It was a lot of work but we're loving the updates.

Throughout the experience God taught us a lot. While in the rental house I one day realized that, while the rental house was nice and I'd probably be happy there if it was my home, it wasn't my home and, therefore, all our focus, attention, time and money went into our real home. What a spiritual picture - as Christians, this earth is not our home. We're here for a while but our focus and energy should really be on our true home.

Another really cool experience - a week after the tornado I was walking around our backyard where the storage shed used to be and saw some papers upside down on the ground. Out of curiosity I picked them up and found my neighbor's emails from 3 years earlier - it was 2 Billy Graham devotionals.
The first one said "Psalm 27:14 'Wait on the Lord: be of good courage and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say on the Lord.' I have never met a person who spent time in daily prayer and in the study of God's Word and who was strong in the faith who was ever discouraged for very long. You cannot be discouraged if you are close to the One who gives all hope and plenty to be encouraged about."
The second one said "Psalm 103:20 'Bless the Lord,ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.' If you are a believer in Christ, expect powerful angels to accompany you in your life experiences. Lord, give me the eyes to see the angels around me."
I know that God put those papers there for me to find them. I was (and am) humbled and encouraged.

Here are some before and after pictures of the house:

I was talking with a homeschooling friend of mine the other day and she was asking about the tornado experiences and if, now that we're all settled back home and even have the updates, did I feel like it was worth it. We've actually talked about it as a family and, without a doubt, we're thankful that we did get hit by the tornado - we enjoy the remodel but that's not the main reason we're thankful. It was such an awesome experience to feel God carrying us in the palm of His hand and so encouraging to know that, no matter what the future holds, He'll carry us through it.

My daughter really said it so powerfully for us. The first day that we tried to get back to routine in the rental house the girls and I were sitting around the table having Bible time. My (then) 8 year old commented that, just like Esther didn't plan to be queen, God had a plan for her - we didn't plan to be hit by a tornado but God had a plan to work in it. My (then) 5 year old summed it up for us - "You know, I always knew God was there but because I couldn't see Him I wasn't sure He could really help us. But now I KNOW He helps us even though I can't see Him."

I knew then that, to have that written on my 5 year old's heart, I'd go through it again in a heartbeat.

Tornado memories - part 2

The week after the tornado was full of amazing instances where we saw Christ at work through His church. (Jesus told His disciples that the world would know they were His followers by their love for one another. We saw that lived out.)

We called our insurance company (who were wonderful!) the day of the tornado. The first adjustor wasn't able to arrive until around 5:00 the day after the tornado.

I told you in the last post that the kids went to spend the night with their friends (who'd planned to spend the night with us that night). One of our girls wanted to be with us so, after we stayed at the house until dark getting things out of the fridge and freezer and packing some clothes for everyone, we went to my parents' house for supper and R went to pick up K.

I think I'll always remember that night. We were in shock - we kept saying "No - that didn't really happen." We weren't upset or anxious, just in disbelief. All night long we layed in bed, not sleeping, and talking about it. At one point I remember I started laughing. R asked me what it was this time. I told him that a little weather station we had (that told the speed and direction of the wind) was on the playset that was gone. For whatever reason I found that very funny. (The playset was one that R had spent a couple months building. It was made of big posts and very heavy duty. After the tornado was over it was gone - 3 posts were about a foot tall and the other 3 were sheered to the ground. All the play equipment and fort wood were gone. The thought of the weather station being taken by the tornado struck me as funny.) The playset was a very concrete illustration of the fact that whatever we do for Christ will last but the things of this earth can be gone in a matter of seconds!

The day after the tornado we came back to the house to clean up a bit and wait for the insurance adjustor to arrive. We were surprised to find families from our church coming over to help us. Some had walked across the neighborhood. The police had the neighborhood blocked off and were very diligent in making sure that only those who needed to be in the neighborhood were there. One family from church who came to help us couldn't get in the neighborhood so they parked at a nearby business and walked in to help us. We were so thankful and humbled for the help.

The whole week was like that. The help offered and given was amazing. My mom took off work and was with us helping daily. My kids had lots of offers for playdates and had great times with friends. R's brother and his daughter drove from over an hour away to help. Our church was there in force. One day I drove to the house after renting a van to find 9 men on our roof helping temporarily patch holes in expectation of more rain. We (a crowd of family and friends) were working cleaning up the house when some ladies from the church showed up with coolers and bagged lunches for everyone. Our youth pastor and music minister spent a lot of time at our house helping. I remember walking into the house one day to find our music minister on his knees vacuuming glass out of the carpet. Another day we'd stopped by the church to borrow the phone to make phone calls and, while I was in another room making the phone calls, I heard the church secretary answer 3 different phone calls of people asking about us. I have no idea who they were but were touched to know that people were thinking of and praying for us. I felt so cherished throughout this whole experience.

God met all our needs also in overflowing abundance. We had multiple offers of places to stay but ended up staying in a local hotel (thanks to insurance) until we were able to move into a rental house. The second day after the tornado we decided we needed to rent a van so the whole family could ride together. (Our van was in the garage when the tornado hit, so we couldn't use it.) Within an hour of calling to rent the van we had two offers of vehicles we could use as long as we needed them! (We only rented the van that one day.) Our local homeschooling group was so faithful in praying and offering to help. I received multiples calls and offers of help. One mom (whom I didn't even know at that point) offered to keep in touch with me daily, post updates to the group, and let them know of any needs. I realized the day after the tornado that I would need to wash my laundry but didn't have facilities nor time to take care of that. Immediately there were over a dozen volunteers to wash our laundry. I was so humbled by the moms who met me, took our laundry, and then delivered it freshly washed and folded. It was a tremendous blessing. People were also so generous in their offers of help - physical and in the form of gift cards. It was humbling and amazing to experience.

Tornado memories - part 1

The tornado last year has really been on my mind lately, so I thought I'd go ahead and take a few posts to share with you the amazing experiences God allowed us.


That morning we had, last minute, called 3 of the kids friends (a brother and 2 sisters) and invited them to spend the night. We met their family at a local restaurant for lunch and then the kids came to our house to play and spend the night.


The weather was stormy all afternoon. (We remember seeing the flags on the lightposts in our neighborhood and seeing the wind was tearing them up.) The kids played around the house, R kept an eye on the news (weather news), and I took care of this and that around the house. Tornado sirens went off a few times but they were always for another part of our county. The friends' parents called to see if the sirens were scaring the kids but I told them they just kept playing and were fine. As I was sitting at the table getting a scholastic order ready to put on the computer, my mom called me and told me the news said people in our town needed to be in their safe places. I assured her that R was keeping an eye on things but thanked her for the call. I finished the math I was doing on the book order, stacked them neatly on the table, and decided to listen to my mom and grabbed some games for the kids to play while we sat in the hallway. (I even had the stray thought that if a tornado came, the book orders would be out the window, but I didn't think anything of it. Like I said - it was a stray thought.)


I told the kids to come to the hallway. They asked if there was a tornado and I told them, "No - we're just going to play games in the hallway." The lights flickered and then went out. The boy needed to use the restroom. I thought, well I have a candle in my bathroom and the bathroom is a "safe place", so I went to our bathroom to grab a candle for him. While I was walking out of the bathroom and through our bedroom, my ears started popping. Meanwhile R had been outside watching the rain. It was falling like normal but, in a split second, started going sideways. He knew it was time to go. When he came running inside telling the kids to get down, they knew it was serious. When I was coming out of the bathroom, he was in the hallway telling me I needed to get in there. We both hit our knees as the tornado hit. (The 7 kids were in between us with R on one side of the hall and me on the other.) It happened so fast I really didn't comprehend what was happening. I heard glass break and smelled pine needles (a pine branch flew through my daughter's window). I got nervous (and so did the kids) when I heard the glass break but R calmly told us "It's okay, we lost a window, no big deal." and it really calmed me down. The door to that bedroom flew open but R reached up and snatched it shut really quickly. I saw the looks of terror on two of the faces of our little friends and knew we needed to do something so we began singing "Jesus Loves Me". I didn't realize how loud the noise was but it must have been loud because, when we were done singing, I felt like I'd been hollering at a football game. The tornado was done before we finished one verse of the song. It couldn't have lasted more than 10 seconds. We made sure everyone was okay and prayed a prayer of thanks. R then went out to check things out and stuck his head back in the hall to tell us "We've been hit by a tornado." Panic set in for some of the kids and we realized that none of the kids were wearing shoes but we had a house full of glass. (Note from experience - wear your shoes when you're going in your safe place for a tornado siren.) While we looked for shoes, R turned off the gas that was spewing from the side of our house and went to check on neighbors. Meanwhile, our neighbor came to check on us and we found some shoes for the kids. (My oldest ended up with slippers, the 2nd resorted to dress shoes, and the 3rd ended up with 2 left crocs - one hers and one her sisters that was the same size & color. Our minds were a bit flustered at the time - I was anxious to be done finding shoes and see what happened.) :)

I called our friends to let them know everyone was fine but they needed to come get the kids. God gave us an amazing peace - I told my friends "We've been hit by a little tornado but we're all fine. I don't think the kids will be able to spend the night though, so I think you'll need to come pick them up." :) I then called my mom and dad to let them know we did get hit but we were fine. Both our friends and my parents were at our house in no time. I started calling my in-laws to let them know we were fine also and also a few other friends who I knew would be worried. I also got lots of phone calls from sweet friends and had a friend post to our local homeschool group so they would know we're all fine. (The house was a bit of a mess but we were all fine.)


God truly put His arms around us. We didn't experience anxiety - just tried to digest what had just happened but really and truly were so thankful that we were all fine that we weren't upset looking at the stuff. It was an instant priority check and God was just so amazingly present!

About the time our friends and my parents arrived, some friends from church who live a few blocks away arrived. I'll never forget the look on her face - she'd been running all the way and had such a look of concern on her face. Her family arrived shortly after her.

The help that arrived was amazing. We didn't know what all to do. Our friends took all the kids home with them. (We didn't want anyone getting hurt on the debris.) A funny moment - the boy was standing on a pile of dirt by a tree in our backyard that had been uprooted. His dad told him to get out of the dirt - then mentioned that he didn't guess it'd mess the house up too badly at that point. :) My dad got plywood to cover over broken windows. Some more church friends showed up with suitcases and coolers to help us load up somethings to take for the evening.

We ended up spending that night at my parents' house.

That's enough for the 1st tornado installment. I'll write more in another post. It was just an amazing time of seeing God at work!

A picture of our dining room/living room after a tornado came through it.

The back of our house.

The side of our house.

The front of our house. (We were in the hallway on the other side of the house. God had protected us and there was very little damage on the side of the house we were in. It's like He had His hand cupped over us protecting us. I told a friend that a few days after the tornado and she said another friend whose house had been hit said the very same thing. God is so good!) :)