The Humbling Power of God - 5/22

On May 22nd, I had a very humbling experience.  I am very afraid of storms, and specifically of tornadoes.  I fear the unknown power of the storms.  The fact that they can just pop out of nowhere and possibly cause mass destruction.  On this Sunday, Astara, Cora, and I had traveled to Branson to work on restocking the PlayNames booths.  We had a good time working and completed out tasks in few hours.  Around 6:30 we headed home, while we were sitting in the drive through at McDonald's, I checked the weather, because I remembered that there was a chance of storms that evening.  I got the first warning that we were under a tornado watch in our area. 

We started on our way home down Highway 65.  This is when I got my second sign of the potential threat.  While we were driving, the cloud to the northwest of us were looking very dark and dreary.  Then, I got a text from my sister, saying that a bad storm had just gone through Joplin and that she was worried, and wanted to make sure we were all taking cover and safe.  This is when I began to panic.  I was driving Michael's new car, which has a standard transmission, and it was starting to rain and I had Cora, Astara, and Liam in the car.  The next half an hour was were driving through terrible rain, and the thunder and lighting was bad.  At one point Cora got very upset in the back of the car. 

We did make it home safely at around 7:30, it was a very scary hour for me and the girls.  Later, we found out about the terrible F5 tornado that hit Joplin, it was devastating.  We have been thinking about and praying for all the families involved in that storm.  What we experienced, was nothing compared to what they all went through.  I just keep thinking that God works in mysterious ways, and that many good things can come out of tragic events.  I see all of the people coming together to help out their neighbors in need, and it makes my heart happy to think that this is what God wants us to do.  He wants us be able to love Him and love each other more fully.  I'm really trying to see the good that can come out of something so scary and devastating to so many lives.  This is helping me deal with my fear of this kind of event.  It is humbling to think that it could happen to us someday.  I hope that my prayers can help those in need in some small way.

After the storm passed we had some beautiful moments.  Astara is a great photographer, and captured these beautiful pictures. 

The cloud cover was so dark, and the sun setting was

so bright, it caused almost a spotlight effect. 

It looked like someone was shining a bright light towards house. 

Astara's "epic" setting on the camera, created some awesome pictures.

There was an awesome rainbow after the storm.

The rainbow combined with the bright light was pretty awesome.