During my time in preaching school in Tennessee — sometime between 2002 and 2004 — I learned a lesson about grace in one of the strangest ways imaginable.
Classes had wrapped up for the day, and a few of us went to the library to study. Hope was at work down the road at First Tennessee Bank. After a while, I stepped away from my studies. A couple minutes later, one of my friends began looking for me.
“Bill! Hope just called! She said she’s been trying to reach you. There’s a tornado on the ground less than a mile from here!”
Now, we were pranksters in those days. So naturally I assumed it was a joke. Yet, he kept insisting. After two or three warnings he gave up and shouted, “If you don’t hurry up, you are going to DIE!”
I doubted that – but the serious tone in his voice convinced me to put some pep in my step.

We ran to the basement — the designated safe spot — and once we got there, noticed that a couple of of our classmates were missing. So, the two of us sprinted through the building calling out for their names. One of them was still
taking a test – but he was reasonable and decided to come with us. We finally heard our last classmate answer from the kitchen.
He was eating carrot cake.
One of the ladies in the congregation had baked it for the students, and he was enjoying it with obvious calm and joy.
“There is a tornado on the ground and it’s coming this way!” we informed him in unison.
He nodded politely. “Okay. I’ll be right there, brothers.”
Before we headed back downstairs, the three of us glanced at each other worriedly. Four or five minutes later, after the twister had passed, he finally joined us — carrying at least his second helping of cake. He smiled and said, “This cake is really good.”
Over twenty years later, this story brings a smile to my face. Yes, it is humorous, but there is more to it – God’s grace protected us, and it reminds me of grace we ought to extend to one another when our priorities don’t line up perfectly.
Both men we had searched for was at least twenty years our elder. But regardless we were all younger, and were easily distracted, and not nearly as urgent as the situation demanded — yet I believe that God watched over us that day.
Not everyone responds to crisis the same way. Some run. Some freeze. Some… continue to consume a tasty morsel.
Paul reminds us, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2). Sometimes that burden is fear. Sometimes it’s confusion. And sometimes it’s a brother who needs to be reminded that dessert can wait until after the storm passes.
Moments like that become stories we tell years later — not to shame anyone, but to celebrate God’s protection and the strange, human ways we all behave under pressure.
Solomon writes, “A cheerful heart is good medicine…” (Proverbs 17:22). Grace lets us laugh at ourselves. Grace lets us laugh with each other. Grace lets us remember that even in a basement during a clear and present danger, God is present.
Preaching school taught us doctrine, Scripture, and ministry. But it also demonstrated something else: God’s grace shows up in ordinary as well as extraordinary moments…in panicked shouts down hallways, in desserts baked in love, and in the friends who drag you to safety when you don’t realize you need it. For God’s Grace not only saves us, it also steadies us. Praise be to the Lord for His everlasting kindness!