The Day that time stood still

The clock that hung in the C's house stopped at the time the tornado hit, and time stood still.

No one wakes up and thinks, "today is the day that will change the rest of my life".  We just don't.  The storms of April 27, 2011 taught a lot of lessons.  They taught the importance of church and community.  They taught the importance of sacrifice.  And they taught the fragility of life.  We aren't promised tomorrow.  We aren't even promised this afternoon.  The Lord has numbered our days, and the days of the world, and we don't know what those numbers are. 

April 27 started like any other day... except for the voice of the weather man talking 24/7.  He had told us today was going to be REALLY BAD.  We had taken that to mean bad.  Certainly not storm shelter worthy.  The morning was stormy... really stormy.  We found out later, a tornado had passed 2 miles from us. 

We spent the day reading, playing violin, and praying for our friends (their dad was in the hospital).  Then we turned on the live weather cam and watched the mile long tornado hit the campus of a prominent college in our state.  We had close friends who lived right there, so we kept calling them.  We finally heard from them.

5:00pm rolled around.  Spaghetti was in the pot.  I don't like storms at all (even before the 27th) so I started shaking as it grew darker.  The weather man started saying our town by name.  We live in a tiny hick town, so when he uses our name we take that as a bad sign.  The kids and Mom took shelter while Dad continued listening.

Nothing happened.  It didn't rain.  It didn't thunder.  No trees, no wind, no sirens, nothing.  Weird.

We came out and went out.  It sounds silly now, but we took a walk!  The weather was to weird to miss.  It was warm and chilly.  Sweet and threatening.  All at the same time. 

We returned to the phone ringing like crazy.  Our grandad had gotten the tail of the storm as it came lower and prepared for touch down.  In 3 minutes it had grown to an F2 and taken down trees and his land had sustained damage.  He couldn't leave his driveway, and he wanted to make sure we were okay.

Passing thought.  Call the C. Family and make sure they're okay.  Mrs. C had a 3 week old baby, and her dad was in the hospital).  Dad was on for 30 seconds max.  "They're trapped, the roof is gone, they're calling 911.  They can't find the L's."

And time stood still...

To be continued!