This is in response to Lori’s “Finding Faith” post. I was going to leave a comment but then realized it would end up being a long comment and it was actually something I would like to share with my readers. Sorry about the quality of the pictures. I took digital pictures of photos I already had, but hey, it works. Well, here goes:
This happened back in 2001 on a Saturday morning. My husband was gone for the morning, and it was just our son and me at home. He wanted to go next door and see the neighbor boy. The weather report said that a storm was heading our way but it sounded like it would be 30 minutes before it got to our house, so I said OK. He opened the front door and then came back inside. Then we heard the tornado sirens going off. Minutes later, we heard someone knocking at our back door. It was a neighbor who informed me that our two gigantic trees had blown over and completely obstructed the sidewalk and front door. We ran around to the front and sure enough, there was this massive forest of tree trunks and branches all over our sidewalk.
Neighbors gathered quickly and covered the hole in our roof with tarpaulin because rain was headed our way. That was a blessing because soon the rain started to pour.
When things had settled down a bit and my son and I were talking about all that had happened that morning, I found out that when he opened the front door, he actually saw those two gigantic trees (which were close to our house, not far from the front door) swaying from the ground up. In other words, the trunks themselves were swaying which meant they were getting ready to come forward towards the house. I realized that God had kept our son safe from going out onto the sidewalk where the trees were getting ready to fall, clearly God’s protection.
On Monday when the insurance adjuster came, he couldn’t get over how those two huge trees did not cut our house like a knife. He said that when you have two enormous trees fall over on a house, it usually cuts completely through the house. Again, I realized again how God had protected both my son and me from being hurt by the trees and a falling roof and ceiling.
One thing I remember, too, is that my husband said those two trees looked like they had been laid gently on our house. I believe it was the hand of God, easing the fall of those trees to protect us!
How many times does God protect us throughout our lives and we don’t even realize it?
We ended up getting our roof repaired and a replacement chimney. One tree did major damage to a corner of the house where there is a walk-in closet. (You could stand in that closet, look up, and see the sky.)
I felt sorry for the guys on trash day who came to pick up tree limbs! Those pieces of tree trunk and large limbs were huge and very heavy. Those were 60 year old trees so they had done a lot of growing!
