I was home alone on Dec. 28 and had the whole day to myself, so I went fishing. I hooked up my boat, a Bass Tracker Pro Team 175, and loaded up my dog, Sam. We headed for a private lake near my hometown of Winnie in East Texas, where I’m the pastor at First Baptist Church. I’d seen storms in the forecast that morning, but it sounded like they were moving north-northeast — away from the lake — and I thought the pressure change might trigger a bite.
They were biting, all right. I was catching fish on every other cast that morning as the storm built up in the distance, so I called my buddy Tony and told him he had to get out there. He met me at the dock, and we were fishing just 100 yards out into the main lake when the storm hit us. Tony and I saw the tornado, but it was blue because it was water wrapped, or rain wrapped. The problem was, I thought it was just a big wall of rain — I’d never seen a tornado like that.
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At that point, I still thought the storm was moving north and we’d be fine. Instead, it was headed east — and right for us. My family was calling me, my friends were calling me, and all sorts of alarms were going off on my cell phone. But I wasn’t looking at my phone because I was fishing. I was arrogant.
But I also know this: If we would have tried to load up the boat and leave when Tony got there, I might not be telling this story. That storm had already snapped power lines that are rated for hurricanes. The sustained winds were somewhere around 135 miles per hour, but the gusts were 161. If we were standing outside my truck when that tornado hit, I’d have been looking like one of those people on the news who didn’t make it.
We were anchored there with my Minn Kota Talon when the rods started flying. And those things will hold you in a 160 mile-per-hour wind. When we finally got the anchor up, I was trying to head to the closest shoreline. It’s only a 300-acre lake, so we’d have to beach somewhere. But I couldn’t see. I couldn’t even breathe because the pressure was so strong.
As soon as the front of my boat hit the reeds, it flipped. Now we were all in the water and we were trapped under the boat.
Sam, my dog, went into a little cubby hole, probably a rod box or something. There was an air pocket down there, so he was fine. And I now know that Tony stayed under the boat because he thought it was better than being out in a tornado. But when I tried to get out from under there, my trousers got hung up and I was stuck with just my torso out of the boat. That’s when the waves were pounding me in the face, and for a split second I thought, Man, in the movies, this is where the guy drowns.
So, I cried out to Jesus. And he told me, “I got a plan for you. This is not how your story ends.” And immediately, I felt calm and at peace, and I got my legs free.
With Tony still nowhere to be seen, I was freaking out and thought he’d drowned. I was beating on the bottom of the boat, and he only came out of there because he heard me and thought I was gonna have a heart attack.
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My friends and family and some people at my church knew where I was. They’d been walking around power lines and down ditches and climbing fences to come get me. By the time I got back to my Toyota, which had blown off the levee, they were already there. They helped me flip the boat back over, and we trailered it out a few days later and took it to a shop.
I’m still fishing out of that boat today. I flip a lot of boats. Not literally, usually, but I’ve bought and sold maybe 25 since the Covid pandemic. But I told my friends, “This one’s not for sale.”
I’ve now used this story to tell millions of people that, although mine was a tornado, we all go through storms in life. Sometimes they’re our fault, sometimes they’re not. And this was my fault. One hundred percent. But God still heard my cry. And I hope that somebody who’s going through a bad spot in life hears this: You can still cry out to God, and He still loves you.
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