In the past, when I would hear of a pending or possible tornado, I knew it would probably hit a nearby rural area. I would pray for those living in those areas. I live in the city and we might get heavy rain and a limb or two might fall but nothing real severe.

Well today, April 4th, Mr. Tornado visited the city. I was at my sick mother's home with my 17 month old grandson and we knew it was going to rain and the wind might get high but other wise it was starting off to be a cloudy but good day. Mother was taking a nap and I was hoping the baby would do the same shortly. I proceeded to water her indoor plants when I hear the wind. I had a flashback to hurricane Ivan and Katrina but I remained calm. The baby was standing at the storm door and kept saying look, see, ooo, etc. so I left the kitchen sink to look out of the door to see what he saw. Oh my goodness!!! The garbage cans were swirling in the air, and parts of her carport roof was being attacked. Shutting the door much to the dismay of the baby, I return to the kitchen sink to finish taking care of the plants, when the phone rang. I go to get the phone and suddenly the kitchen windows blew out. The rack that holds the serving and cooking utensils was flapping and spoons flying in the sink and on the floor. I started coming unglued but I got the baby and my purse (don't ask why the purse, lol). The phone call was my brother telling me a tornado had touched down just a few miles away. Yeah right, we live in the city, I reminded him. The wind got higher. The news said it got up to 87 miles. The baby is holding on tight to me as I check on mother who was sleeping peacefully. I think of how moments ago I was standing in front of that window singing and watering plants. Thank you, Jesus for the phone ringing.

In the mean time, I get concern about my daughter and son in law who were running errands and picking up kids from school on the other side of town, close to our house. I would later find out that on their way to pick up my oldest grandson, they witnessed lightening strike a tree when a tree fell just as she passed it, scraping the bumper of her car. Thank You, Jesus for favor and protection.

Traffic is coming to a halt on the street in front of my mother's home because some live power lines are now down in the street. Thank You Jesus for no power outages on that side of town as Mother is on oxygen and I don't know how to use the portable.

For what seem like hours, all of this took place in less that 5 minutes and calm return to the atmosphere but chaos remained with downed trees, car accidents, trees lying across cars and homes, down power lines, many people in the dark because even though it was not quite 3:00, it was as dark as midnight outside. I would later talk to my sisters who lived 100 miles from here an hour later, and they were experiencing the same thing. Thank you Jesus that no one in our city, county and state was dead although some were injured.

I'm signing off now because our second round of storms are starting. It's predicted that flooding will be the result. Thank you Lord for Your amazing power and your peace even in the midst of the storms.

Good night.