Frogs, Tornadoes and Kansas

 When you're a child, it's hard to imagine the world being bigger than the neighborhood, where you live and play outside until darkness spreads over the landscape like melted ice cream. But the world was so much bigger than my third-grade mind could imagine.

I was spending the summer with my grandparents in sweltering heat of Las Vegas Nevada when they told me we going to Kansas. The only thing I knew about Kansas came from the Wizard of OZ and included tornadoes and witches, and flying monkeys. Not a comforting thought! But a short time later we were packed and on our way to Kansas to meet my grandfather's mother.

One of the towns we drove through, struck terror in my young heart.

A tornado had ripped through the town a few days before we arrived. The streets were cluttered with debris; pieces of clothing hung from broken windows, on stop signs, sides of building had been peeled off like the lid of sardine can. The silence was so eerie and intense we didn't dare speak, as if our words would shatter the scene before us. The memory of what I saw that day repeatedly played itself in my mind until the fear of it filled my every thought. Sometime later we arrived at the home of a relative and would be spending the night there. The first thing they showed us was where the storm shelter in the backyard and my fear ramped up another degree. I was so scared I couldn't eat dinner that night or sleep. My young mind replayed houses spinning through the air and the devastation I saw in the town we drove through. The next morning, we packed up our things and headed out on the last leg of journey.

Kansas, to me was the kind of place you didn't want to visit let alone live there and hoped we didn't stay long. We finally stopped at small house with a patch of grass on each side of the walkway and went inside and minutes later it began to rain. Did you know it rains frogs in Kansas? My grandfather said. "It does not!" I answered knowing he was teasing me.

"When it stops raining look outside." I looked out the screen door and waited. When the rain stopped, I opened the door, and the front yard was covered with frogs. It really did rain frogs in Kansas, But one would ever believe me. . . would they?

We left a few days later and headed back to Vegas, as we drove my grandmother saw a tornado moving parallel to us several miles across the plains and began to pray and told me to pray too. Tornadoes are infamous for being unpredictable and changing directions at a whim. Fortunately, this one didn't change directions but seem to follow us until we cross the state line. We finally made it safely home and I was immensely relieved that we left the tornadoes, frogs, and Kansas behind. But I learned that prayer is the most powerful force in the universe and a seed faith, no bigger than a mustard seed can move mountains and keep tornado from changing direction.

Do you believe in the power of prayer? If so share an experience where the power of prayer changed the outcome of a problem or situation. .