Saturday At About 2:30 A.m., Wade Hawkins, Jr. ...

Saturday at about 2:30 a.m., Wade Hawkins, Jr. and his family were sleeping peacefully in their home when a tornado struck. Ogie, as he is commonly called, and his younger son were sleeping in the master bedroom. His wife had fallen asleep on the couch in the living room, while his eight-year-old son was asleep in the middle bedroom. Ogie told me that he awoke just enough to hear a loud, violent roar. He had a split second to realize that this was not a dream and to drape himself over his five-year-old’s body. He said that one second the house was there, and the next it was gone. Nothing was left but the bare concrete slab.

Somehow (and we know how), Ogie, his wife, and younger son had survived the violent storm. But for about an hour the older son could not be found. He was found later a few hundred yards away from the house in a rice field, battered, scared and crying, but okay. The Hawkins family was the recipients of God’s grace.