Our oldest son, Sammy, got married last week.

We had a crazy whirlwind trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where he lives now. None of us could have planned for the mind-numbing Derecho that tore through town on the Monday prior. Over 100,000 people were without power and destruction was everywhere.

This video (not ours) shows just how insane this storm was, and what we arrived to the day before the wedding.

To make matters more surreal, it was our first time on a plan post-Coronavirus. My brain can’t wrap itself around the idea that we have to stay at least 6 feet away from each other at Church, but it’s still perfectly acceptable to be squeezed in like sardines on a plane.

Our arrival was equally strange as cell-phone (and therefore GPS) reception was spotty. Nearly every traffic light was out, transforming most intersections into 4-way stops.

The roads were endlessly lined with toppled trees, roots fully exposed.

Grain silos were smashed like soda cans.

Electrical poles were either knocked down or leaning askew, as if an earthquake had rolled underneath them. Those, in particular, reminded me of the scene in the 1978 Superman film when Lois Lane drove through the desert as power lines fell all around her car.

When we finally arrived to our hotel – which we’d been assured was one of the few with electricity – we were instead greeted by a darkened lobby.

The desk clerk walked us through a pitch black staircase to an equally dark hallway on the second floor. We weren’t given keys as they card key system wasn’t working. Only the master keys from the desk clerk could get us in the room.

Inside, without air conditioning, we could only open the window a little less than two inches. It was stifling.

People had been already been dealing with these inconveniences for days.

We share more of the weirdness of arriving on episode 340 of Adventures in Imperfect Living. Listen here.

But despite the crazy weirdness, God still showed up.

There were too many-God inspired moments to list, including the moment we were able to give our new daughter-in-law a gift we’d been saving for over 17 years. (A video of this gift is available to our Patreon co-producers here.)

We’ll be processing this last week for years to come. But the most amazing thing to come from it is simply witnessing our son receive the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.