When the plane lifted off from Atlanta, the humidity hung in the GA sky like a formidable force. The firmament’s colors changed in the course of seconds to hues of orange, tangerine, coral, and peach. I looked through the window on my left and snapped a picture with my old iPhone.

I was headed to Iowa again to minister to soldiers there. The weather forecasters were saying we might see some violent storms over the coming days.

I landed in Iowa fine, grabbed a bite to eat, checked in at my lodging, changed out of my civilian clothes and into my military uniform, called the commander, told him I’d arrived, and he invited me to come on in to report. Shortly thereafter, I was at his unit, and we caught up, and we chatted about the next day’s PT test his unit had scheduled. (I’d brought my PTs in order to test with the unit here.)

That night I went to bed early in order to be rested for the PT test the next morning. When I woke early and got warmed up and drove to the field house on post for the first events of the PT test, the skies looked pretty threatening. The sky was spitting rain and the clouds reminded me of the imagery from Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Dark, foreboding, intimidating.

But we all knocked out our first three events: deadlifts, standing power throws, and hand-release pushups. We were picking up our kettlebells and weight plates for the sprint-drag-carry event when the Command Post (CP) loudspeaker blared: Attention, take shelter immediately! And the sirens blared that tornadoes were all around us. So we had to index the PT test and shuffle to the nearest shelter.

Later we thought the storms had passed, at least this front, so I was able to conduct my lane of training for the soldiers here. Training went well; the soldiers enjoyed it. I was able to have lunch brought in for them from a local bbq eatery they enjoy.

After that, I linked up with the commander and deputy commander again, and we planned future iterations of training. I went back to my lodging that evening and was reading a book on the Protestant Reformation called Reformation 500 when sirens began blaring. Then the electricity went off and I heard generators kick on. Tornadoes were all around the area. I looked out of the window of my lodging quarters. The flags on the poles out front were whipping and thrashing like so much thread in a gale. Semi-trucks were pulling off the interstate and onto the sides of the roads and/or under underpasses. The sirens continued to wail.

The skies went from blue, to ashen, to gray, to steel, to almost black. Rain blew sideways. Cars began pulling off the roadways and under concrete awnings of hotels and lodging businesses.

I wish I could say that I prayed highly sophisticated, articulate prayers. I didn’t. I seemed to hear myself mumble like a child: O God. Please. I have so much I still need to do. Lord, watch over my family. But, please, make this pass over me.

Nothing sophisticated about my mutterings, that was for sure. I was simply scared. I felt my finitude. I understood viscerally what Scripture means when it says “you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14, ESV). That’s what I knew in my bones. I was nothing compared to this. A drop, a fearful drop, amidst this massive storm above and around me. I was utterly at the mercy of the storm and the God of the storm.