The Power of a Mighty Wind Posted on June 6, 2025

A May 15, 2025, storm ripped through Glenn M. Wagner’s neighborhood in Holland, causing a lot of damage to homes. This photo shows the backside of Wagner’s neighbor’s house, crushed by the weight of fallen trees that had once stood on the piece of land for many decades. ~ photo courtesy Aaron and Mieke Mutschler

In this Pentecost devotional about power, Glenn M. Wagner shares the recent experience of a 90-mile-per-hour straight-line windstorm in his neighborhood in West Michigan.

GLENN M. WAGNER
Michigan Conference Communications

The storm hit the West Michigan coastline late on Thursday evening, May 15, 2025, near Holland. 

When the weather app on our phone warned of an approaching storm and high winds, I checked the national Doppler radar with its regional map for a better idea of the storm’s progress.  Approaching the shoreline of Lake Michigan from Indiana in the south to Traverse City in the north stretched an ominous red line indicating dangerous intensity and geographical reach.

At 9:45 pm, lightning illuminated the darkened sky with rapid-fire flashes, and thunder echoed alongside sounds of increasing wind. Cell phones in the house squawked in tandem with the television before barking the warning of the severe storm’s imminent arrival, commanding an immediate move to a basement shelter away from windows. Those publicly funded emergency warnings saved lives in our neighborhood.

Then, we lost power, and our home went dark. 

The Doppler radar image of May 15, 2025, shows the storm racing across Lake Michigan to make impact on the West Michigan shoreline.

My wife Nancy and I were immediately aware that without power available to recharge our drained phones or an electrical connection to reenergize my quickly expiring hearing aids, we would soon be isolated and cut off from outside news about when power might be restored.

We had no way of knowing that the storm had downed trees, blocked roads, and severed power connections in over twenty different places.

From our basement, we heard the storm intensifying and what sounded like several large tree limbs falling and scraping down the side of our home. We live in Marigold Woods, a subdivision within Waukazoo Woods, tucked between the Ottawa County Fairgrounds on the north side of Holland and Lake Macatawa. The woods are home to some of the oldest and tallest trees in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. An oak tree next to our garage dates to the American Revolution, and a beech tree across the street is as old as the U.S. Bill of Rights!

It wasn’t long before we heard pounding on our front door. We used our cell phone flashlights to navigate from the basement to our front door, where we encountered our neighbors, Mieke and Aaron, along with their three young children and two miniature Schnauzers, who were wet from the race from their home next door and asking for shelter. In a brief flash of lightning, we caught our first glimpse of our neighborhood cul-de-sac outside. Downed trees already filled the road. Directly across the street from us, we could see a massive fallen beech tree had crushed another neighbor’s garage.

Mieke and Aaron’s home was in worse shape. It had been destroyed by five huge, centuries-old beech and oak trees in their yard that had been uprooted and hurled by the storm into their home like weapons. Twenty other trees had fallen in their yard and driveway. Had they not taken refuge in their basement minutes before the impact, their children would have been crushed in their beds under the weight of the falling giants. Only the side door to their garage could be opened by shoving aside branches and navigating the obstacle course of fallen trees in the storm and darkness between their home and ours.

Soon after settling the children and dogs into beds in our basement, where they tried to calm down, we were alerted again by rescue workers ordering evacuation. Fallen trees had ruptured a nearby gas line, which was spewing potentially explosive gas next to a forest of flammable material. Downed trees across every entrance into our neighborhood prevented rescue vehicles and needed equipment from reaching the scene to repair the gas line.

Mieke and Aaron found new refuge for their family in the home of friends who lived further away from the leaking gas. In the dark of night under a now-clear sky, we joined other neighbors standing in a cluster of speculation in the middle of our rain-soaked street safely down the block to await the news that it was safe to return home. The all-clear was offered after 1:30 am on Saturday when workers hiked on foot into the neighborhood to locate and repair the gas leak.

We became increasingly aware over the next 48 hours of what it means to live without power. We avoided opening our refrigerator and freezer in an attempt to save food from spoiling.

Workers use a crane to remove a fallen beech tree from a neighbor’s home following a recent storm that tore through Waukazoo Woods in Holland, Michigan. ~ photo courtesy Glenn M. Wagner

When Friday dawned with clear skies and sunshine, we opened our disabled electric garage door by hand, inflated our bicycle tires with a hand pump, and pedaled around the neighborhood as bikes were able to go where cars still could not. We turned off our cell phones to preserve waning battery strength. When emergency crews finally cleared the obstructions blocking our roads, we drove across town to stop by the home of friends to shower and charge our electronic devices. Just a short distance away, there was little evidence of the storm. Other residents of greater Holland were living with fully powered normalcy.

We have been humbled by the raw power of the storm, which hurled trees that had withstood every challenge for over a century, and in some cases more than two centuries, only to be uprooted and snapped destructively in minutes. Homes of solid building materials and centers of neighborhood friendliness were rendered uninhabitable in seconds. In the daylight, we learned that a great beech tree in a neighbor’s backyard had been uprooted but was still held up by a companion tree, preventing it from falling onto our home and crushing our bedroom.

This particular storm also revealed to us other aspects of great power.

We experienced the incredible power of neighbors coming together to help one another with food, shelter, storm clean-up, and mutual support, offering comfort and listening. Social and public media have exercised the power of communication to share information and helpful resources. A local appliance business generously offered free refrigeration for foodstuffs to neighbors without power for as long as necessary. Local businesses, including a taco truck and a meat distributor, arrived in the neighborhood with meals for workers and neighbors.

We are grateful for the restorative power of utility workers, public safety officers, elected government officials, and contractors who have worked around the clock to help clear debris, restore utilities, and secure damaged homes.

We have been amazed at the power of human invention, as demonstrated by chainsaws, tow trucks, cranes, log lifters, woodchippers, and hauling trailers.

We are moved by the power of faith on display as volunteers from church and community have shown up to help with clean-up and relocation for those whose homes have been severely damaged, and to offer prayers of thanksgiving for the fact that no human being has been physically hurt in this neighborhood because of this devastating storm.

This storm, with its important lessons about power in many forms, has brought me new insights for Pentecost, observed each year by Christians fifty days after Easter. This year, Pentecost is on Sunday, June 8.

Christians honor Pentecost as the day God gave Jesus’ followers the Holy Spirit, fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection on Easter.

The arrival of the Holy Spirit is remembered in Acts 2 as sounding like the rush of a mighty wind. The disciples also experienced this wind as feeling like tongues of fire. Jesus’ disciples were suddenly given the ability and the courage to speak publicly to others about Jesus in Jerusalem. Those in the crowd included Jewish pilgrims who came to Jerusalem for the festival of Shavuot from other places, speaking different languages. And all were able to understand God’s message of salvation, love, forgiveness, and hope in Jesus in their own languages.

The May 15, 2025, storm brought down power lines in over 20 locations in the neighborhood. ~ photo courtesy Glenn M. Wagner

Because of that Pentecost outpouring of heavenly power in the rush of a mighty wind, Christianity is today the world’s largest religion with 2.4 billion followers (about 31.2% of the world’s population). The complete Bible has been translated into 700 languages, even though the Bible is sadly banned or restricted in 52 countries.

Gratefully, the movement of God’s Holy Spirit is still changing lives.

I have been inspired anew by God’s power when blessed by the great Christlike compassion shown by neighbors following the recent powerful storm. I am also inspired by a faithful prayer offered by Autumn, the five-year-old daughter of our next-door neighbors.

Autumn’s mother recorded the mealtime prayer after the storm. Her mother said that if they hadn’t fled to their basement three minutes prior in response to the public broadcast warning, her children would have been crushed by the falling trees that destroyed their home. Autumn’s father was still upstairs when the first tree crashed through the house and leaped down the stairs to safety and without injury.

The family was able to eat together on Friday in the safety of a friend’s home.

Dear God,

Thank you for our food.

Thank you that you help us that we didn’t get cold and didn’t get hurt at all when the trees fell on our house. Thank you that we are safe. Thank you that you keep us safe. Thank you for snuggles, and thank you for goodness. Amen.

God is still using storms to change lives for Christ. May the Holy Spirit continue to empower our witness for Jesus and his love. Our world still needs disciples inspired and emboldened by the Holy Spirit.

Last Updated on June 5, 2025