Every two minutes.
The motel was cheap. Well, it better be since it was right next to O’Hare Airport.
But I didn’t really care about the noise when I checked in at three in the afternoon and sat down to pound out a few rewrites of my current manuscript. I’d smashed, devoured and coughed up two chapters by 7pm (you read that right… Two measly scenes in four hours—and my book has 45 chapters! Hence the need for a couple of nights at a hotel…) and called it a night. I was at a motel after all, about an hour from the husband and two boys and intent on a good night sleep. I never work very well in the nighttime anyway and bought a pint of milk for hot cocoa. (Did I mention it was 95 degrees outside?)
Two nights of sleep sounded heavenly, especially with a new school year around the corner.
But at 8pm as I listened to a roaring airplane sound so loud that I thought it’d crash through the motel door, only to be followed three minutes later by yet another plane, I started to reconsider handing over my credit card without checking a map first.
I’d even taken 10mg of melatonin so that maybe I could stay asleep for most of the night—if I ever fell asleep anyway.
Well, I must have, because my eyes opened to a strangely familiar sound. My nine-year-son absolutely loves this video game called Storm Chasers. And I heard the faint tornado siren now. After a moment, there it was again. The crescendo, peak, and decrescendo.
Nah. It was only a drill (at the very wrong time and day). Or the siren was going berserk. Because there was no way my writing retreat would be interrupted by a—
And then a chill ran through me. Brushing aside the tornado siren was always a prelude to people getting struck with debris, right? Right before the wind sweeps up the structure they resided at … I’m not wrong, am I???
I tore off the covers to look outside. No rain. Which didn’t mean anything. The tornado siren didn’t just go off for nothing.
A quick peek at my phone. Yep. Emergency notice (which I apparently slept through) had gone off.
Maybe the alert system is still connected with my home in Chicago. This meant nothing.
Except the tornado sirens were going off here.
“This is not a drill!”
And a click into the emergency notice was clear: Tornado has touched down in Southeast areas (wherever that was). And then of course: Go to the lowest area possible and take cover immediately!
I don’t know much about location or preparedness, but when an emergency notice has bold, underline, and exclamation marks, I probably shouldn’t head back to bed.
Something like this would have been fine at home. We have a basement in our apartment building. Stock up with snacks, board games, make sure a flashlight and cell phone is handy, and we’re set for the night. The sleeping bags are in the storage unit right there if it turns out to be more than an hour or two. No biggie.
But I wasn’t at home. And instinct told me it was too late to try to drive back there.
And I wasn’t about to run around outside looking for a basement. I doubted Motel 6 had one.
And, of course, I was on the second floor.
Sheer terror flooded through me.
The lights flickered and went out. Back-up lights outside gave a blue glow.
By now the wind had picked up. One glance out the curtains and my veins went icy cold: the rain was coming down horizontally, like the videos of hurricanes on television.
Another thought soon followed: I never should have left my family.
There was no way I was going to attempt to drag a queen-sized mattress into the bathroom, so I went inside the pitch-black bathroom, closed the door (am I supposed to lock it? I decided not to) with my phone and crouched in the bathtub with my hands laced over the back of neck as I was taught in elementary school.
The wind was screaming now. I started to cry.
This was the time my heart really started to pound because my back-up for all my books was still out there, ready to get snatched up. I did what every other author who’s been writing for the past 15 years would do: I scrambled out of the bathtub, with my heart pounding in my ears, accompanied by the terrifying sound of the wind, grabbed the entire computer case, and dove back into the bathroom (still not sure if I’m supposed to lock the door, so I didn’t).
Huddled in the bathroom with my computer case and phone under my bent legs and talked to God like I never talked to Him before.
This was my prayer:
“Make the storm stop!”
On repeat. I must have said the same sentence fifty times. Over and over and over again.
No “Dear Heavenly Father.” No Bible verse. Not that I couldn’t have conjured one up about God’s protection, His goodness, His steadfast love. The thought occurred to me — but I also knew He knows who He was. And this wasn’t the time. I didn’t even pray for God to spare my life. I had a prayer request, just one. And I threw it at God with all my might. I just didn’t have the bandwidth to ask for anything else.
“Make the storm STOP!”
And then, as was bound to happen, I remembered I’m scared of the dark. Hyperventilating-claustrophobic scared. While I kept talking to God, I went back to the emergency notification and tried to find a map. And then tried to find Shiller Park on the map. I found it—and it was beige. Not green. Not red. Beige. Which meant, no tornado. No thunderstorm. No rain. Nothing.
Now I was confused and terrified. Because it was currently raining really, really hard. And I was waiting for that train-sounding wind to accompany the screeching of the wind I was still hearing from my alcove in a windowless inner bathroom with the door closed (but not locked) on the second floor.
And then I noticed texts fly by as fast the bullets of rain. I hadn’t bothered to text my husband when he had privately texted me at 9:30pm about the storm and asked if I was all right. Now I really couldn’t manage a response. His family, my mom and sister, were all texting back and forth. There jokes were flashing on the screen about my sister’s cat not wanting to stay in their lap.
And it just made me cry harder. I was going to die alone.
Now I was also mad at God.
Couldn’t He have put something on the calendar for this week so that I decided to put off my writing retreat for next week? I was writing a Christian novel! Dying alone wasn’t supposed to happen!
“God, I know You can, so make this storm stop now. RIGHT NOW!”
After the petitions, I started vowing. You know the drill: “I’ll never miss a Sunday service ever again! I promise I’ll go home tomorrow and forfeit the second night reservation if You just keep me alive!”
And then, of course, “You are love. You are good and powerful. Jesus calmed the storm at sea. You can calm this one—if You want to.”
I’ve known desperation before. I’ve pleaded with God before. This was different. This was a prayer of holy desperation. Grieving surrender.
God had all the power. And I also realized He didn’t have to use it.
He could let me die.
And He’d be right in that decision.
Not that death is ever God’s plan—not on the first day of creation and not now—but there are parts of God’s plan we can’t see right here and now. And we have to trust God in those times too. We don’t have to like it or agree. Just trust, like when a parent takes away a cookie from a toddler.
That includes dying alone due a writing retreat interrupted by a raging tornado.
Did I stop crying? No. Did I start singing praise songs? Nope. I cried harder, prayed louder. I tried desperately to find the map of the radar (this time I couldn’t find Shiller Park, whether it be red or beige or sparkles and polka dots).
Eventually the weather alert on my phone simply said “rain.” The picture was of a person with an umbrella.
And I was depleted. Disappointed. Discouraged.
And I realized God had just given me an idea for a modern-day story of Jonah. (“‘Creative inspiration’ isn’t why I came to the writing retreat, God. Not at all!”)
I gave my husband a very brief text: “I’m safe. I’m turning my phone off because the power is out.” When he responded, with tears in my eyes and realizing I had abandoned my two sons while they endured a tornado scare, I texted that I loved them and then turned off my phone and went under the covers.
I had promised God I would leave tomorrow. And I would. I’d check-out before 11am and request a refund. Not that I cared about the $60. They couldn’t prevent a tornado any more than I could have checked the forecast.
And really, that was a small cost to pay for having survived.
God had spared me.
Is that melodramatic? Am I a little overimaginative? Hello, I’m a writer. Of course, I am.
But this is my story. This is what I felt. This is what God told me.
All alone in the silence of the dark (and now warm) hotel room, I pulled my arms out from under the cover, raised my arms to the ceiling, and said, “Praise You, God. Lord of heaven and earth.”
(I’ve got the modern-day retelling of the account of Jonah down pat!)
Soon the roaring of a plane that sounded like it could crash into my hotel room overwhelmed my ears every two minutes. I fell asleep with a contented sigh because, well, I’d rather have airplanes.
Your turn: Have you ever experienced a moment when God shook up your life, and your faith grew because of it? I’d love to hear about it!
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