The Name of the Lord...

"The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe." Proverbs 18:10

How many times have I held on to the name of the Lord, for dear life. Literally, not knowing what was going to happen next. I held on.... during a tornado in Minnesota; my body covering the body of my two year old son while my husband's body covered our ten year old daughter. The sound outside was frightening! We thought our tent was going to be ripped from the ground with us in it. We hovered and prayed as tree limbs, and dirt and debris of all nature, clashed against our tent. Our hearts and words cried out to the Lord to save us. "Oh, Father! Hear our prayers! Protect us! Save us!" I was also saying in my heart.... "God, I don't want to die, not here; not now!"

We were not just on a camping trip, we were traveling across the United States on a short term missions trip. We had stopped at a campsite and had bedded down for the night.

As the wind died down, and the rain became just a steady downpour, we crawled out of our tent to assess the situation. It was still dark and hard to see very much around us. We felt so blessed that we had made it through a storm of this magnitude and realized that it would be early dawn before we could see the real damage. As we crawled back into our tent and tried to settle down, we heard another rumbling... The tornado had turned and was coming back toward us. We could feel the wind and rain tearing at the tent again. Along with friends in another tent, we grabbed our children and ran to the car; the rain coming down as I had never seen it before. We could feel the wind swirling and moving around and under the car. We called again on the name of the Lord; and waited....

'The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are safe."

The wind blew, and the rain pelted; but our car did not move. We sat there until we could see the morning light. Having had little sleep, we packed up all of our soggy, wet camping gear and looked at our tent. Our bent and twisted tent poles had been forced deep into the ground and had become our anchor. As we loaded the car and headed out of the campsite, we saw a camper that had been lifted from a truck; we saw a barn that had no roof. We saw destruction everywhere. We stopped at a little cafe up the highway for breakfast. There were many stories told around a cup of coffee and bacon and eggs.

The name of the Lord was our strong tower in the middle of the night; a night long remembered....of calling on Him and answered prayer.