I'm without words

Sunday morning, Amy and I woke from our long night of pretending we were really 23 and not 32. We stumbled into our hotel room sore from our half marathon, smelling like the Tailor Park bar…dirty feet and all. The plan for Sunday was to meet one of Amy’s friends for brunch, causally take our time shopping before we hit the road back to LR. Amy, perked out of bed around 8am, I saw she was checking her phone, naturally I figured she was making sure she didn’t drunk dial anyone the night before but I was wrong. She had an alert on her phone that bad weather was headed towards LR and suggests that we nix our leisurely Sunday and head back home before the weather hits.

I fully don’t understand why I well up with tears when I think of this. Maybe because I think of God’s Grace, Maybe because God protects us from things before we even know we need to be protected. If we had not left Nashville we would have been driving right when the tornado hit.

We drove through a little rain, but not bad at all. Not shortly after we got home I heard the tornado sirens going off. Naturally I freak, because M is out of town and he is normally the one that keeps me from going 0-304 on the freak out scale. I immediately went to M’s closest and cleared a space for us in case we needed to take shelter. NOTE: Houses in Arkansas do not have basements. Which explains my high freak out score. I shut all the doors and corralled my mom, my dog and H to the master bedroom. With the News blaring so we could hear Ned Perme (also known as Ned Spermy because I’m 12yrs old) read the counties as the storm blew over. SALINE COUNTY came over the TV. I look at mom to see if we should head to the closet. I guess I didn’t notice.... but Mom had gathered everything but her curling iron.

She’s hysterical.

Shortly, the sirens go off and we go outside to see the damage. Nothing. It had barley rained. Whew, it blew over us.

We continued to stay in the master bedroom with the TV on watching Perm predict where the Tornado was headed… My stomach was in knots hearing Mayflower, Vilonia, and Conway… I immediately started texting friends who lived in those areas, most responded with “Were ok” “that was scary but we are ok” except one…

My coworker:

“We’ve lost everything”
“We are still searching for biscuit” (their dog)
“Please pray Amie”

My eyes welled up in tears. Tears of joy that she was safe, tears of joy that we were save but how did I have so much joy and so much sadness at one time?

I continued watching the news most of the night and into the morning.

Devastation is the only word that comes to my mind.

Monday morning, Tornado talk was all anyone could talk about. We received word that my coworker was ok. The dogs were found.


Unfortunately that was it.

It’s absolutely devastating. I came across this blog who speaks about the Smith family who lost their two sons.

GRAB a BOX of Kleenex and read HERE.

I absolutely cannot fathom the amount of pain this family is going through. It isn’t fair, it’s sad, it’s absolutely devastating. The amount of faith that the Smith family has is incredible. Absolutely incredible.

This really hit home “Everyone is here for a purpose, for God’s purpose not for our own fulfillment. And we know when their purpose is reached, they GET to go home. How incredible is was that Tyler and Cameron were able to serve their purpose in such a short time, when it takes some people 100 years”

WOW. CAN WE SAY GUT CHECK?

What a witness. What an awesome witness. These parents aren’t mad at God, of course they are filled with sadness but they don’t blame God. Instead they have turned this tragedy into a testimony.

I ask you today, to please keep the Smith family (and all the other families) in your prayers. Hug your babies, hug your friends and for goodness sake treat each other with kindness. You never know what tomorrow brings.

Graphic by Josh Phillips