On February 5, 2008, an EF-4 tornado blew straight through Union University.  I was on campus that night, and the experience remains the one time in my life that I legitimately feared I was about to die.  Thirteen students were trapped in the rubble, and fifty-one were taken to the hospital.  The scope of the devastation was enormous, but God, for whatever reason, kept us safe.  Every February 5th I try to take time to acknowledge what happened so that I remember both the brevity of life and the protection of God.  The words that follow (with a few grammatical corrections) are what I wrote in a blog post a couple days after the tornado hit.

Around 6:30 the tornado sirens started going off, but we didn’t pay any attention. That happens often, living in Tennessee, and I was planning on starting my homework while the roomies watched American Idol. Brittany Cox ran over to our room through the rain and sirens, and we were just sitting around chilling. Then Whitney’s phone rang, and she all of a sudden said, “We’re leaving, come on!”  Continue reading →