Bring on the Rain!!!

Well, let me first say we made it through the storms last night (not like you could not tell since I am typing this, but what a night it was). I woke up last night around 3:30 to the storm and the sirens going off. I immediately jumped up woke up heath and got in mom mode. Which for me means turn on TV and confirm yes we should wake the kids up and take them downstairs and all hang out in our little powder room. The TV was not on 1 minute when the power went out-that was it grab the kids and off we go, I did manage to find a flashlight and grab my Walkman so we could listen to the Radio. The sirens stopped as soon as we got down stairs but when the local weatherman said he had called his family and told them to take cover I knew we should stay where we were because he lives near us. I tried not to stress and tried to make Allie think it was all a fun game, I think I pulled it off pretty well because she has not really brought it up today. We made it back upstairs around 4:30 ish and Austin went to his bed and of course Allie stayed in ours. We woke back up around 6:30 to find we still had no power. I got moving feed Austin got Heath up and talked to my mom. She had managed to sleep through it all- lucky her!!! We headed to her house to eat and hangout and that is when I realized how bad it really was in our part of town. No power anywhere near us, traffic was a nightmare, trees snapped all over the place. It took me over 30 minutes to get to her house and she is less than 5 miles away (and that was trying to take the side rodes because the main one was worse). Our house so far appears to have fared very well. We are one of the lucky ones, we have some fence damage but overall it looks like we got out OK. Our power cam back on around noon, only after I had taken ALL our frozen food over to my mom's to put in there freezer. My sister's house is not as lucky she has roof damage and her power is still out and almost every house on all the streets near her have roof damage. I realized just how much God was taking care of us when I saw that. It can all be fixed but it is such a hassle, and stress.
We are thankfully all safe and sound, God has once again shown me how lucky we are and how blessed we are.
Looking outside now the sun is shinning bright and the clouds are gone, and just like the storms in our life God has brought us through this one and is showing us his glory and his mighty hand. Just like the storms last night will help to produce new growth, I know I grow from all my personnel storms. I also know that sometimes I forget to thank God for bringing me through my own storms but find it so easy to thank him for keeping us safe in the literal storms. I pray that during the storms in in our life we lean on Christ and grow but I also pray we would thank him for those Storms. I know I am a much better person for trials I have gone through, and so today I thank God for my storms and for what has come out of them.
Well this is not the original Blog I thought I was coming here to do but it is just something God laid on my heart. I pray you all are safe and sound and can thank God your your storms. Meredith