LIGHTS WENT OUT

 June 2, 1998

An F-4 tornado swept through the sleepy town of Eckhart, Maryland just about a mile from my home. 

My husband (at the time) and my three children and guinea pig were hunkered down in our cellar, praying.  

 Sirens sounded. Lights went out.  Phone service stopped. 

Darkness. 

Fear.  

Then, relief.  The storms had passed and we were safe.

I will never forget my drive to work the next day.  Words cannot come close to describing the feeling that came over me as I swallowed hard trying to rid the lump that was in my throat.

 Trees were uprooted and houses pulled apart and strewn throughout the town.  There was an eerie presence.  One I've not felt before nor since.  

 The only word that would come close to describing what I felt that cool, quiet morning after, while driving slowly through the still and silence of uprooted trees and homes strewn about - was Reverence.  

God had touched our land in an angry way.  

At that time in my life I was thinking 

(after almost 20 years of marriage) of divorce.    

I was being lured away from all that was right.

  

I wondered...  Was God speaking to me?  Were there others He was trying to reach as well?  

Is this how He gets our attention?  Who can understand The One who created Heaven, Earth, the Universe and all that is?  Who can know His plan?  His Will?  His hot displeasure with what we are doing with our gifts of life when we go against His will?  He wants what is best for us, because we are His children and He loves us.  

 Twenty years ago today, God came near.   He touched our land and He whispered, Be still, and know that I AM GOD.  

Revelation 21:4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

* Photos complements of News/internet research (not my own) Photographer unknown.