A Terrifying Call from the Closet

Two weeks ago, our phone rang a few minutes before midnight. It was our oldest daughter. We could barely hear her, but she began by saying, “We’re okay, but our house was just hit by a tornado.”

On the night of April 13, 2020, a tornado swept through our daughter and son-in-law’s neighborhood. When our children realized what was happening, they ran toward an inner closet. Fortunately, they arrived in the closet just as the tornado hit. They didn’t even have time enough to close the door. One side of their house was blown out and lifted off the foundation. Both garage doors were “sucked” inside the garage on top of their vehicles. Windows were blown out, and glass shards were turned into projectiles all through the house. Part of their roof was lifted off, and heavy furniture inside the house was picked up and thrown all around. A metal trash can that was not theirs somehow ended up in their kitchen, and a 2×4 was tossed like a javelin through the side of their house and into their living room. Had their flight to the closet been any slower, they would have been caught, exposed to all the destruction, and probably killed.

In the closet, they huddled, yelled to each other over the noise, “I love you,” and prayed until the storm passed.

Just before we received the phone call, I was praying for my college buddy who had just recently lost his daughter, son-in-law, and two-year-old grandson in the Cookeville tornado. I had just told my wife that this storm must be haunting my college friend. The sound of the wind at night must have brought back many painful memories for him. Little did I know what was happening to my own daughter and son-in-law.

I am profoundly thankful that my daughter and son-in-law are okay, but I am just as profoundly impacted by the truth that life is fragile. We can be here one moment, and the next moment be ushered from this life into eternity.

Friends, if you would run as fast as you can to a closet to save your physical life, then how much more should you run to Jesus to save your spiritual life? Quit procrastinating! There’s a storm coming!