an experience I don't wish to repeat

I have this love/hate relationship with the Canadian prairies. Most of the time I absolutely love where we live, with it's astonishing sunsets, snowy white winters, and dramatic springs & falls. Where I come to a bit of a hiccup in my affections is the summers, or, more specifically, what the summers bring. Around this time last year, I was glued to my computer screen watching storm chasers skirting extremely large supercell storms that were forming right around where my parents lived. None of those big storms ever made it to where we lived, and for that I was thankful because we lived in a mobile home on top of a hill. 

Unfortunately for me, we now live in that exact area that the storm chasers were targeting last year. And now they are targeting it this year. Allow me, therefore, to treat you with a front row seat to one of those aforementioned supercells. 

This was the sight we were greeted with as we left a neighboring town after attending a wee person's second birthday party. We were aware that our whole region was under a tornado watch, but a watch is not a warning and these clouds just looked heavy and dark, not swirly and angry. 

I scanned the clouds constantly, trying to convince myself that we were truly safe to enter this mass of blackness. Then I noticed what is called a "wall cloud" off to the left of us.

I was on my guard immediately and kept my eyes glued to it, watching triangular peaks going down, going up, going down, going up... and I didn't like it. I took Joey's hand and said a quick prayer for protection, and we kept driving. I was pretty sure we weren't going to get caught in the path of that scary section.

But it got closer. And scarier. And angrier by the second.

We were directly in it's path! I'm sure I had every intention of photographing it's progression... but...

...this was the next picture I actually felt safe enough to snap. You know, after the fastball (and some  grapefruit) sized hail stopped pounding, deafening, and terrifying us. We had stopped because the sheets of rain were so thick that we could not see the road. Five minutes in, the hail started. Joey and I were looking back at our petrified kids, singing "Jesus Loves Me" as loud as we possibly could, trying to distract them from the chaos around them. Soon we couldn't even yell over the din. I was crying, trying desperately to cling to my sanity, forgetting the words to one of the first songs I ever learned, and praying constantly. I kept thinking, Is this really happening?!? Can we actually be sitting in a minivan in the heart of a life-threatening storm? WITH OUR KIDS??! We were parked on the side of the road at a bit of a slant, and the wind was catching the van and rocking it back and forth. I was so afraid that we would be rolled into the ditch. We shielded our eyes from the windshield because it really did seem like it would go at any moment. When it quieted down a bit, I tried to prompt Judah to pray, hoping it would give him and Ben an anchor in the terror. Praise Jesus, it did lift, and we were finally able to drive out of the madness - but not very fast. There were sections that were so caked with hail that it felt like we were driving in the dead of winter. Judah actually asked if we could buy him some skis. (I love that kid.)

At this point I was waving at all the vehicles passing us, trying to signal that YOU SHALL NOT PASS! and coming down from one of the biggest adrenaline rushes I've ever experienced. Joey had shards of glass all over him, but other than our splitting headaches and shattered nerves, we were all ok. Lydia, in fact, was asleep. Judah was amazed that Jesus led us out of the storm. Benjamin didn't say a thing. 

On our way home, I began texting my mom, letting her know what we had just come through. That's when we made an amazing discovery: exactly when we were entering the heart of that tempest, God had suddenly put it on her heart to pray for us. The Holy Spirit spoke to her heart, and she prayed hard, not knowing if we were even on the highway, or what danger we may have been facing. I know I had thought about sending her a text message to pray, but I never got to it. It turns out the Holy Spirit carried the message for me. Wow, what an amazing God!!

This is our van now. Almost everything on it is damaged, save one side panel, the back bumper, and the hatchback. We are expecting that it will be written off, considering the money for repairs will likely cost as much as the value of the van. I remember thinking as the hail started coming, oh no! not our van!. This quickly transitioned to, I don't care about the van! Just keep us safe! And He did. 

The storm season is not over by a long shot. I'm already dreading tomorrow's storm prognosis, but I know that God is fully capable of protecting us through anything that comes our way. That doesn't mean I'm not seriously considering moving to Iceland, though.