My Tornado Testimony – By Amber Kriesel
In Job 42:5 Job says that he knew God by hearing about Him, but ‘now’, after all of his trials, He could see God with his eyes. I have known about God my whole life. I have loved God and gave Him my life as a young girl. I never realized, however, how self sufficient and capable I believed I was in myself until I was reduced to total dependence on Him.
On May 20, 2013 a deadly F5 tornado tore through our town of Moore, Oklahoma leaving behind a path of destruction. My three young daughters, my husband, and I were all home taking shelter in our small bathroom those terrifying minutes that this monster hovered over our neighborhood leveling our side of the street. Our home and all of our earthly belongings were left as nothing more than a muddy pile of sticks, toppled bricks, and shattered glass.
We prayed as we huddled together that afternoon, calling on Him, knowing our only hope was in Him. In those final seconds before the chaos was calmed, our tub started to cave in from the pressure as it was shoved against my husband and I as we knelt beside it. Our girls were in the tub and even as we laid ourselves over the top of them the tub began to twist beneath us. We knew we would not survive unless God Himself held us down as the storm lifted.
That day as we stood up helping each other out of the tub, seeing the girls without a scratch on them, we saw God with our eyes. Our family was alive, together, and able to walk away from the very destruction that should have killed us. Yes, a tornado stole all that we had and we lost our stuff but we walked away with EVERYTHING that mattered.
I never could have imagined the beautiful blessings that would rise up out of such an ugly mess that left us with such a loss. The Lord has continued to show Himself to us in countless ways and now our eyes are open. His heart towards us is good. From the moment we got up and walked away from the rubble of our home He has supplied our every need, day by day and moment by moment. Praise Him!