Grace Notes

Looking back on 2022, one of the highlights was celebrating my parents’ 50th anniversary! We rented a cabin for a few days back in April to celebrate.  My dad decided that they would celebrate their 50th for a year starting with 49 and he made custom polo shirts that say “49ers going for the gold.” They wore them all year.

They frequently go on romantic dates and get-aways, and my dad has a whole collection of love songs he has recently written to my mom. He sings them to her at night before bed, I hear. We think he does pretty well for only knowing a handful of chords on his guitar. They tell us that being empty nesters isn’t so bad!

I’ve already posted about the difficulties Josiah and I had from the derecho wind storm last week, so I thought I’d share a bit about how the storm looked from the rest of my family’s perspective and a broader look at our town.

My dad was with Sarah and Grandpa at the Bright Lights office when the storm hit. He writes: “When it seemed that the wind had died down, we ventured upstairs. The building next door had fallen down and was laying in the street. We had water coming through our ceiling by our back door, but I didn’t see any other immediate damage inside our office. I wanted to go home where Rebekah was, but I couldn’t get out of the parking lot. The whole lot was a mountain of 2 x 4s. It was the whole roof of the building across the street. The alley the other direction was also blocked by debris. Lots of people were now outside, even though it was still raining pretty hard. There was so much to do. The guy from the pizza shop next door helped me move the dumpsters and debris from the alley so I could get out. But getting home was another story. Every road was blocked by trees, downed power lines and debris. I had to zig-zag for 15 or 20 minutes to go the 1 mile from the Bright Lights office to home. At home, I found we lost 5 of our 11 trees and lots of branches. Our biggest tree was laying on our garage, but our damage was light compared to many others.”

The building next door to Noah’s Archive.

A tree fell on mom and dad’s garage.

Sarah and Andrew had tied their special swing to the huge pine tree in their back yard to make sure it stayed secure in the wind storm. They never expected that the entire tree would fall on the neighbor’s garage.

My mom was alone at home while so many trees in their backyard were crashing over.
“Are you downstairs?” my dad texted.
“Yes. Where is the safest place? This is scary,” she texted back.
“Get under the bed” my dad texted her.
“I can’t fit” she said.
“Go into the bathroom (no windows)” Stephen advised.
Thankfully no trees hit the house!

The more we all saw what had happened in our city, the worse it was. Most of the large trees were down. In fact, the city of Cedar Rapids estimates that we lost approx 50% of our tree canopy covering. Chainsaws and generators were sold out all over town. Gas stations were closed because they had no power. Driving in town was very difficult with many impassible roads. The city implemented a curfew from 10pm to 6am. Over 400,000 people lost power. No one knew when power would be coming back.

Power lines were everywhere–strewn across roads, yards, trees and branches. It felt like Cedar Rapids, the 2nd largest city in Iowa, had just become a war-devastated 3rd world country. Much food was lost. There was no garbage pick up. On the positive side, we had a beautiful view of the stars. An army of bucket trucks and crews for tree and electric work have been on our streets for two weeks now.

Andrew, Sarah’s husband, cooking outside. They went 10 days without power but did greatly appreciate a generator that friends shared with them.

Church on Sunday was a bit different as the service was held in the parking lot instead of in the building. At least there were many freshly cut logs to use as seats. Andrew, Sarah’s husband, was the scheduled speaker. Guess what topic he had been given weeks earlier? Jesus calming the storm.

The Bright Lights office and Noah’s Archive bookstore remained without power for about 12 days. Just three days ago the power came back on. Yay! No more packing orders by flashlight!

Neighbors have bonded together and Christians all over town have had many opportunities. The National Guard has arrived, Samaritan’s purse and other Christian groups have arrived, and most of the city now has power again. It is going to be a LOOONG time for our city to heal. Amazingly, only a few lives were lost through it all. The Lord has protected and He is working, using this tragedy for many open doors.

“The LORD hath His way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.” Nahum 1:3

When we received a text from my brother about a severe wind storm coming Monday morning, August 10th, I took my hanging plants off their pole and set them on the ground, and felt satisfied with my preparations. Little did we know what was about to happen.

The first thing I noticed as the storm began was my heavy potted tomato plant on the back deck — gone. It had been tied to the side of our deck and the wind pulled both right off the deck. That’s when I realized something unusual was happening.

“Um, JOSIAH!” I called to my husband, who works from home now.

Outside the window, huge thick trees began bending over like the inflatable tube men you see advertising businesses. We learned later that the straight line winds were up to 140 mph. From our basement we were thankful we could text my family who were experiencing the same severe winds four miles away. Josiah and I heard crashes upstairs and the sound of water.

As soon as the storm was over, we found a broken light fixture, broken deck, and water coming through our ceiling in multiple places.

But that was nothing compared to the devastation we began seeing as we opened our door. Our neighbors across the street, Bekah and Ryan, were on vacation but they asked us to text them a photo of their house. It wasn’t pleasant having to send them this photo:

They weren’t the only ones. House after house in our neighborhood had huge trees down. Later we learned that this is was what happened throughout our entire city.

“Knock! knock!”

Neighbors came to warn us of a gas leak outside, saying I shouldn’t leave the house for the sake of our unborn baby’s health. Apparently there were gas leaks all over town.
We are used to tornadoes where damage is very specific to one area–not a windstorm like this that affects the entire city at once!

A kind neighbor with a chainsaw helped Josiah remove the large limb from our roof. Another neighbor lent us a worn tarp to put on the roof. It had holes, but was better than nothing. We put bins around inside under the dripping ceiling to catch the water. We couldn’t vacuum up glass inside because we had no power. We couldn’t open the fridge or freezer in fear we’d loose what little cold air we had in there.

After canned black beans and tomatoes for supper, it was dark so Josiah and I went to bed by candlelight. We talked about the crazy day for a half hour, then blew out the candle. A few minutes later we heard an unwanted sound. “Drip.” Then, “Drop, drip, drip.”

“Josiah, did you hear that? I think it’s dripping on our mattress,” I said.

We could tell the drip was increasing, so we got up to place a bin underneath to catch the water. We decided we should move our mattress, and we were about to do so, when the entire ceiling above our bed fell. Chunks of drywall, insulation, and ceiling crashed down onto our bed and bedroom floor.

Had we stayed in bed one minute longer, the heavy jagged drywall would have landed on us (and our almost-born baby). As it was, it merely scraped my calf as I was walking away. Had we fallen asleep, we wouldn’t have heard the drip or moved. Had our baby already been born, her little body would have been under the drywall too (her bassinet connects to our bed). We’ve been praying for the Lord to protect our baby girl and we saw Him doing this very clearly.

Josiah and I decided to sleep downstairs. The next morning I woke up starving and ate another can of black beans. Not only was electricity out, now cell coverage was gone also. Our house had glass covering one area and insulation and drywall covering another, neither of which we could clean up yet. Being 39 weeks pregnant, we were just thankful contractions didn’t start during the storm!

What a blessing it was to have my brother show up bringing news and some supplies for us, and then my parents shortly after, bringing more tarps to help Josiah put on the roof.

Josiah and I kept having more and more little difficulties. Would our tarps keep water out in future rainstorms? Would our kitchen ceiling cave in too (it was looking like it might!)? Did we need to evacuate completely? How can we get the help we need to fix our house when all of Cedar Rapids is in the same shape? When will we be able to vacuum our carpet? Josiah already had one piece of glass or a splinter in his foot. And how will we get our yard cleaned up with no chainsaw? How can we help our neighbors more?

Days after day was going by without power and we had no idea when it might come back.

We had been ready for the baby, but not anymore! Freezer meals for after our baby’s arrival were eaten or tossed. The bassinet with freshly washed sheets was now filled with scratchy insulation. The suitcase I had packed for the hospital was filthy. Oh well. At least we tried to be prepared! I figured. My doctor’s office’s phone lines were also down and emergency measures were being taken there too.

Dad and I, working on getting glass or a splinter out of Josiah’s foot

The Lord helped us so much.

A good friend who does construction came over and gave us great help and advice. Josiah and I stayed with Stephen for three nights since he had electricity at his appartemnt, 30 minutes away. What a restful oasis.

The Rathke family brought some relatives and a chainsaw over to our yard and did in 30 minutes what would have taken Josiah hours. They still didn’t have power themselves but were going out around town helping people.

Our baby still has not come, but we are getting set up for her again and we have been given a fresh glimpse of our God’s powerful protection. It’s scary to think about what could have happened when the bedroom ceiling fell and I’m reminded that no matter how hard we try, we cannot fully protect ourselves, or our baby. If there is one place that you think you should be safe, it’s in your own bed at night. Yet without the Lord’s protection, we are not even safe there. Psalm 127 says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain.” I am so thankful that we have a mighty Protector.

You may be wondering how the rest of my family were affected by the storm? You can read about their side of the story in this post.

A year ago yesterday our family slid on ice, hit a semi, rolled our large white van over the median fence and slid through a narrow break in oncoming traffic to the far side of the interstate. Our crunched van and shattered concert grand harp mattered very little to us. We all knew we had just come very close to death. And our minds were on our mom who was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. (Full story here.) But a year later, we celebrate not only that we are alive, not only that our mom is happily healed, but that the Lord has even restored our van and harp to better than they were before.

A Christian family we didn’t even know heard about our situation and gave us their van as a gift. Here is an excerpt from their email: “Our family has been studying the book of Acts … and something that has really impacted us is how freely our brothers & sisters in the early church gave to those in need amongst the body of Christ … As I read of your van accident in your daughter’s recent email, not knowing when this had happened, I really felt the Lord laying it on my heart to give you our van … I figured we were too late to help … Well, when I received your email this morning, my heart soared with the possibility that we might be able to help brothers and sisters who are in need of something …”

We’ve enjoyed the van on several long trips in the last 9 months and it’s much nicer than our old van.

Additionally, our insurance paid for our harp to be sent to France to be repaired. We packed it up in a huge box and a shipping company picked it up. A few months later the repaired harp arrived. I think it’s even better than it was in it’s original condition.

Why did the Lord provide for us so abundantly? I guess the much larger mystery is, “Why did the Lord spare us from the much bigger danger (hell) even though it cost Him the life of His Son to provide this rescue for us?” We may not know the answers to our questions, but we do know one thing: He is deserving of all our praise, and all our hearts.

Our whole family almost died last Friday night on a trip home from Chicago. We are amazed to be alive.

The five of us were together, traveling home from a great-aunt’s funeral. We were having a nice family time in the van, laughing at old stories.

The weather had just changed, and had become a mix of rain and snow, but it didn’t seem especially dangerous. But it was more slick than we thought, and while passing a semi we hit ice and began fishtailing.

“Oh no,” I heard. We were losing control.

I peered up from the second bench where I had been lying down, and saw the front of our van hit the side of the semi we had been passing. The impact of hitting that semi sent our van violently into the grassy median, and I saw that we were now headed towards the gleaming lights of oncoming traffic. All of a sudden things felt really out of control (we were rolling, but I didn’t realize it at the time) and I heard the loud noise of the van roof crunching in on top of us. I yelled, “Jesus, protect us!” and tried to prepare myself, thinking I was about to feel a ton of pain, and we all might die.

However, after a few seconds, we were stopped by the side of the road, and I didn’t feel the pain I had been anticipating.

“I’m okay!” I said, surprised.
“I’m okay,” my dad responded.
“I’m okay,” Sarah echoed.
“I’m in pain,” my mom said. Just hearing her voice was a relief, but she was holding her stomach and her shirt was getting bloody. She was not able to answer questions very well or identify the location of the pain.

Stephen was already on the phone with 911.

I looked around to get my bearings. We had been going west, but now we were on the far side of the east-bound lanes of the interstate.

Here’s what had happened: We had rolled over the cable separation barrier and landed right side up in oncoming traffic. When Stephen (the driver) refocused his eyes on the road after that roll, he saw the oncoming traffic about to hit us and he thought we were all going to die. However, the momentum kept us moving and we skidded across both lanes of traffic. Once Stephen saw we were on the shoulder, he stepped on the brake. He was shocked that we survived.

Back to my mom. She seemed a little faint and couldn’t answer questions very well, but she indicated the pain was subsiding. She was taken to the ER and later I learned that the blood was actually just from a cut on her hand. There was an initial fear of internal bleeding, but the CT scan showed her internal organs were okay. She does have a fractured shoulder, though, and bruised internal organs. The hospital kept her overnight but she is now at home recovering.

In the above picture you can see our red cooler in the median. Apparently it flew out while we rolled, along with other things. Almost all the van windows shattered and even our big harp was part way out the window. We do not have an explanation for how my mom, Sarah, and I (who were not wearing seat belts) did not also fly out the window, except for the Lord’s protecting hand. My mom was right next to the cooler, and she was even leaning against the window when we rolled.

Mom and Dad were very happy to be reunited, and we were all relieved Mom wasn’t worse. It is an unbearable thought to consider all the things that could have (and realistically speaking, should have) happened.

The hospital chaplain told us, “I’ve been working here for five years, and you are the first trauma accident where all the people have lived to tell about it.”

I questioned her, confused. I mean, we all know many survive car accidents. She explained that she only gets called for the serious accidents. And in situations like ours, we were the first family in five years that all survived.

As you can imagine, we were all pretty emotionally shaken. I remember sitting with Stephen in the waiting room, waiting to hear how Mom was.
“Did you think we were going to die?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I thought we were going to die,” he said, his eyes welling up with tears.
The next few days were filled with emotion for all of us. Two days later, my dad was preaching the sermon at church and took the first 15 minutes of his sermon to tell of our accident. It was hard for him to get through it.

Through all the grateful tears, we also have an increased compassion for those that do experience great loss in these kinds of accidents.

Here’s where the accident took place. We were coming from the other way. You can see the cable barrier and broken posts. That’s where we rolled.

Praise God the van structure held up well enough during the roll that the roof didn’t crunch in further.

Sarah’s neck was very sore, and the next day at the junk yard and Detective Stephen discovered a clue as to why her neck hurt so much.

She must have hit her head on the ceiling of the van as we rolled. This is a chunk of Sarah’s hair caught in the van ceiling! Thankfully, the soreness in her neck is already subsiding.

Now our harp…. it didn’t do so well!

As we took off the harp cover, this is what we found. We’re grateful it was insured, but even if it wasn’t, it hardly feels like it matters. We’re alive.

On Sunday afternoon I sat down at our kitchen table with my Bible. It fell open to Psalm 116. I looked down at the verses and read these words: “For You have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:8-9). The whole chapter was amazingly appropriate. (Amazing how no matter the disaster, there’s a Psalm that will fit. 🙂 )

Stephen showing my mom pictures of the van the next day in the hospital

Right after the accident when I realized my family was alive, I felt such thankfulness to God that it was hard to express. It was this feeling of, “What could I ever do for You, Lord, to thank you for this?!”

Yet, that Friday night rescue wasn’t the biggest deliverance that the Lord had accomplished for me. The much bigger gift was when He died on the cross to rescue me and my family not just from earthly death, but from eternal death in Hell.

“Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all” – Isaac Watts

The Lord has provided for us in countless ways: A young couple who saw the accident happening (from the oncoming traffic side) stopped immediately and were a comfort to us – they also had their families praying for us. A friend, Craig Rollinger, who lived nearby came immediately to give Stephen a ride from the hospital to retrieve the harp from the towing yard. Our church family showered us with love and met all our needs.

We have yet one more reason to owe our lives to Jesus. And we are reminded that He is able to easily rescue from any danger until He says it’s time to come Home.