A Shelter in the Time of Storm

Orchids Galore! Ginter Botanical Garden.  Copyright 2012: singeronthesand

I will say of the Lord,

"He is my refuge; my God, in Him I will trust."

Psalm 91:2

I dropped by the secretary's office early this afternoon to let her know that I was going up to the conference office in northwest Richmond.  The weather was blistering hot when I went out to my car, but storm clouds were gathering in the west, and I remembered that rain was promised for this evening.  I jumped on the Powhite Parkway, crossed the river, and turned onto Staples Mill Road.  

As I traveled north, I noticed that the blackening sky was now directly ahead of me, and it appeared that I was going to run into a thunderstorm.  Suddenly, the cars in front of me ground to an abrupt halt, and the sky overhead took on the look of grey-green smoke.  I turned on the radio just as warning signals were blaring out the announcement that we were under a tornado warning, as a funnel cloud had been sighted right in my area.  The wind began to blow fiercely and my little hatchback began to rock and shake.  Hail pelted the car, then buckets of rain poured down, obliterating the view in front of me.

I was in the middle lane with no where to go to pull off the road.  We inched along until we came to the light at Parham Road, and suddenly everyone stopped and would go no further.  The velocity of the wind increased and I thought my car was going to tip over, while the roar of the rain thundered around me.  The only thing I could do was pray - pray for myself, pray for those around me, pray that the twister in front of me would go forward or sideways, but definitely not backwards!  Or, better yet, that it would disappear altogether.

When the smoky blackness finally rolled on in its journey eastward, the line of cars began to inch forward again, this time going slowly in order to miss the branches and trees down in the road.  I went up a little further until I could pull into an empty parking lot, calm my heart, and praise my Heavenly Father for being my shelter in the time of storm.