Tornado & Thankfulness

Yesterday afternoon a tornado ripped some huge trees up by the roots and twisted the tops off of others like a corkscrew. Many homes and cars were damaged when trees crashed into/onto them. All of this happened about 1/4 mile from our house. It was SO scary - the wind was blowing at 60-80 mph -- our trees were leaning sideways in the wind but somehow they didn't break. In the midst of all this the tornado sirens began to shriek. If the storm hadn't already had you in a panic that siren would've done it for sure!

Now, 27 hours later, 250,000 local people are without power. Grocery stores and homes have refrigerated food spoiling. One small grocery alone had to throw away 40,000 pounds of meat, dairy, and produce today. We can only imagine how much has been put into dumpsters state-wide.

We live right in the middle of all this, but we still have power and our trees, home, and cars were untouched. Go figure. In the midst of all this mess I got to thinking about how fortunate we are, & how much we all take for granted. I thought I would make a list of 10 things I'm grateful for at this very moment. These will be just off the top of my head - no deep thought (I'm too sleepy for much depth!).

I'm thankful because:

1. nobody was killed locally in the tornado
2. our home wasn't damaged
3. we both have jobs in a state where that's no longer the case for many families
4. we have air conditioning & are comfortable right now despite the heat and humidity
5. we're relatively healthy & so are our families & pets
6. we have friends & family to love and who love us - we even received phone calls from friends checking to see if we were ok after they saw our neighborhood's damage on the news
7. our neighborhood doesn't have drive-by shootings or gang violence - I can walk outside at night without fear
8. Friday the doctor called & told me that my annual kidney scan to check for recurrance of cancer is clear - that makes 6 years! (Even though it's not expected to recur, it's always nice to have solid evidence.)
9. my kids are great
10. God is taking care of us all

I'm not even going back to check spelling or wording - I'm going to bed!
I'd love to see a list of things for which YOU are thankful today!