Job 23:8–10; Matthew 7:24–27
On the night of April 30, 2019, tornado sirens sounded in the small town of Haileyville, Oklahoma. An EF2 tornado swept through the area, damaging homes, vehicles, and businesses. The far northwestern corner of neighboring Hartshorne was also affected, but to a lesser degree.
At the time, I was managing TH Rogers Lumber in Hartshorne. I’d heard reports as I was getting ready to leave the house the next morning, Wednesday, May 1, but what I heard hadn’t prepared me for what I saw as I approached Haileyville on my way to work.
I drove slowly through town without stopping while emergency workers and first responders worked to ensure everyone was accounted for. Later that morning, I went out to survey the damage, assess what people needed, and determine what our store could provide.
The devastation was mind-boggling.
The roof had been torn off the back two-thirds of a secondhand resale store, leaving the front relatively undamaged. At another small shop, the front half was gone while the back portion appeared unscathed.
A highway directional sign had been twisted nearly 270 degrees. The sign directing travelers toward Highway 270 East now pointed south-southwest.
The post office roof was shredded. The roof and kitchen exhaust equipment from my favorite café were lying about a hundred yards away in someone’s backyard.
At an auto body shop, the tornado had torn through the middle of the building, leaving damage that looked as though a semi had been driven straight through it.
Dozens of homes were damaged, several beyond repair.
One home was still under construction. It had been framed with metal studs, the metal siding was just going on, and the windows had been installed the Friday before the tornado. Now the framing lay bent and collapsed across the concrete slab, with window units scattered among the wreckage. Work completed only days earlier had been undone in a matter of moments.
An antique store operating out of a repurposed home had been lifted from its foundation. The anchor bolts had ripped through the wooden sill plate as the structure was picked up nearly intact and deposited about fifteen feet behind its original location.
For the people who lived and worked in Haileyville, those buildings held years of effort, memories, and plans. In a matter of moments, so much of what had seemed secure had been torn apart.
I took photographs during that visit, with permission from the business owners and homeowners. At the time, I was focused on the work in front of me. People had immediate needs, and I was trying to figure out how we could help. I didn’t stop to draw a spiritual lesson from what I was seeing.
That connection came more than seven years later.
I’d discovered Adobe Premiere on my iPhone and started going through photographs to see what I could create. I added a picture, then some words, then looked for other photographs that fit the thought as it developed.
As the images and words took shape, I began connecting the destruction I’d witnessed with the ways life can leave us shaken, disoriented, and wondering where God is.
Some storms give us enough warning to hear the sirens and find shelter. Others arrive through a phone call, a difficult conversation, or news we never expected. They shake our confidence, disrupt our plans, and leave us struggling to understand what comes next.
And sometimes, in the middle of it all, we struggle to find God.
That thought brought me to Job 23.
In the verses leading up to Job 23:10, Job describes searching for God and being unable to perceive Him. Yet even there, with his questions still unanswered in the wake of utter devastation, he says:
“But He knows the way that I take;
When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.”
—Job 23:10, NKJV
Job couldn’t see what God was doing, but he trusted that God knew where he was.
We can find ourselves unable to perceive God in the middle of our circumstances and still trust that He knows the way we take.
As I continued looking through the photographs, another image caught my attention differently.
At least three rafters had been pulled from beneath the roof of a house. The wall was damaged, and the structure had been destabilized. Yet the house remained standing.
Looking at that picture now, I think about what it means to endure the storms of life.
We can suffer real damage. We can grieve, struggle, and find ourselves uncertain about how to move forward. Our lives may look very different from what we’d planned.
And still, we can stand.
In Matthew 7:24–27, Jesus describes a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds beat against it. The house stood because of its foundation.
Jesus also describes a house built on sand. The rain, floods, and wind came against that house, and it fell.
Both houses faced the storm. The foundation they were built on mattered.
Jesus connects building on the rock to hearing His words and putting them into practice. That brings the question close to home:
What have I chosen to build my life on?
It’s a question worth considering before the wind begins to blow—and one we may find ourselves answering again while standing among the pieces of what has been damaged.
Building on Christ means learning to depend on Him and live by His words. That trust takes shape in the choices we make, the prayers we bring, and the steps of obedience we take while our questions remain unanswered.
Sometimes that prayer comes through tears. Sometimes the next step feels small. Sometimes we need someone beside us to help us take it.
Standing may look like praying again, accepting help, or taking one faithful step through a day we’re struggling to face.
We may come through a storm carrying wounds. We may need time, help, and healing. We may have a great deal of rebuilding ahead of us.
Through all of it, Christ remains worthy of our trust.
That’s where these photographs bring me now: to Job’s assurance that God knows the way we take, and to Jesus’ invitation to build our lives on His words.
You may be looking at circumstances you don’t understand. You may be grieving something you spent years building. You may be praying and wondering why the answers haven’t come.
You can bring those questions to God. You can tell Him how much it hurts. And you can trust Him with the next step, even while the way ahead is unclear.
When you can’t seem to find Him, He still knows exactly where you are.
And when your life has been shaken, you can keep placing your trust in Christ—the foundation on whom you can stand.
