Struck down, but not destroyed!!!!!!

Hey...today has been one long, emotional day!Yes, school leaving preparations,rag day,our lady of sorrows presentation,class photo etc., I must say that I personally can't wait to leave my school!And in my opinion, they can't wait to get rid of us too =P But anyway life goes on xD
So basically the title chosen is from 2Corinthians 4:9..and it really shocked me (in a good way)...so I'll tell you all about it! =) I was reading the "Real Life" section on brio (http://www.briomag.com/) and I saw this written on one of the articles: Struck Down but Not Destroyed
And basically this is the story found, it's really interesting so read!You'll learn to appreciate life more!
Struck Down but Not Destroyed by Katarina McIntosh as told to Ashley Boyer
I live in Greensburg, Kan., a small town of about 2,000 people. On May 4, 2007, a group of about 30 students from our school would be competing in the state forensics tournament with the largest team in years. We all got on the bus and headed for Salina, a city four hours away. Little did we know what we’d find when we returned the next day.
My mom had been at Bible study a few weeks before and had shared a verse that had spoken to her, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9. “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” She had no idea how fitting those verses would become two weeks later.
After what felt like weeks of being on the bus, we arrived at the hotel. Our teacher, Mrs. McMurry, called her husband and informed us of a tornado warning in Greensburg. If you live in “Tornado Alley,” this is no big deal. Tornado warnings happen all the time; you go to the basement and chill for a bit, then come back up and go on with life. Nobody was really worried.
Back in Kansas . . .Back home in Greensburg, my mom made some snacks and joined my dad, my little brother, Tyler, and his friend Trevor. They noticed the siren going off and headed to the basement, never bothering to turn on the news. They turned on a movie to pass the time until the warning was over.
Back at the hotel, I knocked on my boyfriend’s door and mentioned the tornado warning. He’d been watching the news, and it looked bad. All of us began to panic when we realized there was no cell phone reception in Greensburg. The leaders came out in the halls with us and tried to call their families as well. We’d all been watching the news, and we knew that a tornado had been spotted; so far it looked as if it was headed toward Greensburg.
Back home in Greensburg, my mom noticed something that had never happened before. “Gene,” she asked my dad, “are your ears popping?” The wind began to blow hard, and the doors of our porch began to slam. Glass began to break upstairs, and my parents started to pray. They asked the Lord to protect them and put His angels around them.
The electricity went out, but my dad had grabbed a flashlight. Suddenly, the window in my Dad’s study broke out! Dirt and debris flew inside, swirling around the room. My dad threw couch cushions over my brother and his friend to protect them. The dust filled the air until my dad could hardly breath.
Back at the hotel in Salina, Mrs. McMurry called everyone into her room. More news—Greensburg had been hit. We were four hours away, and there was nothing we could do. One thought floated around in our heads: By tomorrow, we may be the last people from Greensburg alive.
Storm SurvivalFinally, the storm died down. My family thought they heard someone calling for help. My dad opened the door to the basement, and they all stepped out. There was glass and live wire everywhere. With the flashlight to guide them, they came into our living room. “Oh, the piano is still there, so is the couch,” my mom noticed. Stepping over the rubble, they crawled out the hole in our front door.
When my parents got outside, my mom looked across the street where my friend Alexis lived, but she couldn’t see their house.
Soon a paramedic from Greensburg came up to them. “Is everyone in your family accounted for? Are you all OK?”
She told my parents to walk across town to Davis Park. Carrying our two dogs, they headed that way. When they had left the house, they figured they would be back that night, and since they couldn’t really see how bad the damage was, they never bothered to grab anything else.
In Salina, we were finally getting in touch with family. I had accidentally left my cell phone at home, and nobody else could get a hold of my parents. But God gave me a peace, and I knew somehow that my family was fine. What I began to worry about most was everyone else.
I went back up to the rooms and began to pray in a way I’ve never done before. I walked through the hallway and said a silent prayer for each person I passed, asking God to take away their fear and give them peace. I went by the leaders and asked God to give them strength to comfort all the kids they were in charge of.
The AftermathIn Salina, Mrs. McMurry said the bus would leave for Greensburg as soon as possible. We had canceled our state competition. Finally, a leader came up to me and told me my aunt had called them and said my parents were fine. They found a ride to a nearby city, where they would spend the night at a shelter.
We got to Hutchinson, a city on the way to Greensburg, and we were dropped off at the mall. I was told to wait until my Aunt Deanna came to get me. A little later, I saw my older brother Brian. He lives three hours away from Hutchinson, but he’d already driven down.
Just a little while after I got to my aunt’s house, my family arrived. You can imagine how happy we all were to see each other and tell our stories. Soon my oldest brother, Steve, and his wife, Maureen, flew in from the Washington, D.C. area to be with us. It was wonderful to all be together.
Before we knew it, my dad had somehow gotten an interview with “The Today Show” and every other news network after that. We went back to Greensburg to see what was left. My parents cried when they saw our house, not so much because of how damaged it was, but because it was the only one on the block still standing. With all their prayers, God had saved most of our house. For quite a while after that, we would go back and load stuff from our house into trucks to take back to my aunt’s to clean.
You can watch news and look at pictures, but nothing, I mean nothing, can really show you the damage to our town. When the rumors were over and the facts finally came out, we learned it had been an F5 tornado, 95 percent of the town was destroyed and 12 people died.
Within 24 hours, there were organizations from all over trying to help people. We weren’t real worried about our things, because we all understand that stuff can be replaced, but our family can’t be. We couldn’t believe how kind people were and how many huge donations and help we received from all over. Our family received letters from as far as Florida, Arizona, California and Montana. Most are from people we’ve never met.
Not DestroyedOne of the days we went back to Greensburg, on the side of our house—what my friend Charlotte and I jokingly referred to as “my pile of rubble”—I spray-painted the words “Struck down but not destroyed” and “2 Cor. 4:9” underneath. It became a way for people to recognize our house, because when all the street signs and all the homes are blown away, it’s hard to find your way around town.
If you don’t believe in the power of prayer, then take a look at the only house standing on the 300 block in Greensburg, Kan. Praying saved all of it and the people in it. All of us in Greensburg know that even though we’re hard pressed on every side, we’re not going to be crushed; sometimes we get perplexed, but we won’t be in despair; many of us are persecuted, but we’ll never be abandoned; we may be struck down, but we aren’t destroyed, because God is with us!
Copyright © 2008 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
I'll leave you with this video including pictures of the aftermath of this F5 tornado.God Bless You All X