Butterfly Men
Posted by: bneumann848 <bneumann848@...>
It’s been just over two years since a
monster F5 tornado with 200 mile-per-hour winds leveled the city of Joplin,
Missouri. It was the deadliest tornado in America since 1947, killing 158
people and injuring 1,100. Yesterday I had the privilege of reading the
first-hand account from a pastor in Joplin depicting “the rest of the story.”
For three days before the storm, this
pastor felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to pray for God’s hand of protection
over his church. On the morning of the storm (Sunday), with no apparent cause
for alarm, an intercessor obeyed God’s nudging, slipping back into the
sanctuary after service and praying for three hours.
When the storm hit Joplin, it was a mile
wide. One member of the pastor’s church hid in a closet with his wife. When the
closet was ripped apart at the seams, his wife was pulled up by the powerful
winds. He grabbed her hand and held on tight while she whipped in the wind.
Suddenly, he was lifted off the ground also. He cried out to God to hold him in
place. Suddenly a strong arm grabbed his ankle and kept them both from being
carried away, until at last they both fell to the ground. No one else was with them.
A 75-year-old church member brought her
85-year-old neighbor into her house. When the storm assailed her home, she
cried out to God to hide her in the pavilion (Psalm 27:5). Suddenly the roof of
the house shifted forward, sheltering the two women while the rest of the house
was destroyed.
Just moments after the tornado, a man
rushed to the local Wal-Mart and noticed two of the tallest men he had ever
seen lifting “massive shelving units” off of those who were wounded. When a
little boy who was lifted by the storm was found on the other side of town, he
was asked how he got there. He reported that he had flown with an angel and
that the angel had fed him. Rescue workers found a teenager who had been
impaled to her car seat by a piece of metal that broke through the windshield
and were surprised that she had remained quite calm. She was equally surprised
that they couldn’t see the man dressed in white sitting next to her in the car.
He told her he would stay with her until she went into surgery and that she was
going to be alright. The metal missed her spinal column by a millimeter. Three
weeks later she was swimming.
According to the pastor’s report, there
were so many encounters with angels in the aftermath of the storm that little
children began referring to them as “Butterfly Men.”
doesn’t mean He isn’t working on our behalf. In the midst of the storm, God
sends His angels as ministering spirits to care for those who will inherit
eternal life (Hebrews 1:14). Praise God, there are more for us than against us
( 2 Kings 6)!
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