There are no words...

I don't know if I'm quite ready to (or if I even can) put into words what took place last Wednesday. I haven't posted since early that morning, and while we knew the storm systems headed our way could be bad, never in our wildest dreams (or nightmares) did we think it would be as bad as it was.

My name is Mary Kathryn and I am a resident of Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

My family of 5 survived our second tornado in less than a month.

We sat huddled in our hallway,

two mattresses between us and the walls.

I remember praying that if the house fell in around us, please God let us be okay underneath.

I have never experienced such fear.

When you become a parent, your first priority becomes your children. It's no longer all about you, but about them.

When they ride a bicycle, you can place a helmet on their head.

When you cross the street, you can hold their hand and teach them to look both ways.

You keep sharp objects out of their reach, but how do you keep them safe from a half-mile wide storm that is headed towards you?

We prayed, because that's what we could do.

Oh how we prayed.

We are still here.
Our house is still standing.
God is good, all the time.

We haven't slept at our house since Tuesday night- the power on our street was just restored today. How thankful and blessed we are to live so close to our family, and how thankful and blessed we are that everyone survived.

Never thought I'd have to say those words,
"we survived, and so did all of our family".

And if a tornado wasn't enough to shake things up around here, I had an emergency appendectomy on Saturday.
yep, that's right.
crazy, huh?

Hopefully, we will get back to some sort of normal soon.
Don't think things here will ever quite be the same again.
I think now we'll refer to things as 'before' and 'after' the storm that has claimed 40 lives in our city as of this moment.
latest reports are that 340 are still missing.

Our church building is gone, but a church is not the building but the body of believers. We are still here. Many of our members have no homes, but praise God that each member of our faith family survived.
There's that word again-
survived

Since the events on Wednesday, President Obama, Charlie Sheen, Brian Williams, Lester Holt, Jim Cantore, and Michael W. Smith have all made visits to Tuscaloosa. Jesse Jackson even came to a prayer service held in the parking lot of my church.

God is at work in Tuscaloosa.
His plan is perfect, and our hope and faith will always rest in Him.

God is good,
all the time.

Do you know him?