On Easter Sunday evening, my husband and I awoke to the sound of high winds. The rafters in our house were creaking. We heard tree limbs cracking outside. We are surrounded by woods along the back of our property.
We lost power once around 2 am then drifted back to sleep. Around 5:30, the power went off again. This was when the winds picked up. My husband got me out of bed and made me curl up on a bench in the laundry room. This is the center of our house so it is the safest spot. I began praying for the safety of our friends and family. After an hour or so, the winds died down. We went back to bed. It was a fitful night and neither of us got much sleep. When we woke again around 8 or so, we still had no power. Thankfully, it wasn’t too hot outside so we opened up some windows to get fresh air. We looked around the yard. It was littered with branches, debris and leaves. Tree limbs were down everywhere. We were fortunate because only one shingle appeared to be damaged by a falling limb. We called our family. My mother was fine and had actually slept through the whole thing. There was no damage to her condo, only a mess of tree limbs blown about. Our daughter was safe at her patio home which has few trees nearby. Our son lives in an apartment in the front of our office. It is surrounded by several huge oak trees. We phoned him to check on him. He said he had heard heavy winds but did not realize until daylight that a tree was down in the front yard. It was one of the big ones! He was fine but the tree came very close to the building. 
We feel blessed that we did not suffer more damage than we did. Others were not as fortunate. There were tree limbs down and uprooted trees all over town. Some fell on roofs of homes. Tarps covered quite a few houses where trees had fallen. There were 9 deaths reported across the state from tornadic activity and heavy winds. There is still a lot of clean up going on.
I am reminded of the scripture in Matthew 8:25 when the disciples woke Jesus in the boat and said “Save us Lord, lest we perish.” I thought of this passage in the middle of the storm while I was praying. He can quiet the storms in our lives only He wants us to reach out to Him in faith recognizing our need for Him.
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