An ax is a handy and practical tool, especially for chopping and splitting wood. And there are different kinds of axes: felling, throwing, hewing, and one or two others.

Did you know people have used an ax to save life and property during storms? They fought the weather with an ax and won.

My ninety-six-year-old mom and I talked about the recent tornadic storms and the devastation in the various cities and states. So many tornadoes in December, a winter month, are just unheard of. The loss of life was heartbreaking and tragic. The obliteration of houses, businesses, and public property was surreal. The storms cracked and crumbled buildings like pecans, lifted and flipped cars and vans that rested on their sides like headstones in graveyards.

Many scientists hope the December storms of 2021 were an anomaly, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, and not a new normal due to climate change.

During the conversation, Mom recounted a story about my grandmother and her doings during one particular storm.

Long before the National Weather Service and Doppler radar, there was my grandmother who listened to and watched nature. She had no fancy degrees, not even a primary education, but she knew something about the handiworks of God and nature. Her weather radar was her eyes, ears, nose, body aches, and spiritual intuitions.

Grandmother Nellie was a Godly, small-framed, but strong female. She was a ‘get-it-done’ woman of few words and didn’t play with disobedient children. Need I say the mold she was made from doesn’t exist today.

Mom said during a terrible storm, she saw grandmother lodge an ax in the ground to split an oncoming tornado. I had never heard of such; she definitely had my attention.

How do you split a tornado with an ax?

She said a section of the storm went one way and the other in the opposite direction.

Can you imagine this?

Well, you had to know my grandmother. I’m sure she didn’t only wield an ax in her hands; she had a prayer in her heart.

This ax versus tornado story may sound fantastical, but this is no Paul Bunyan tall tale or bigger-than-life yarn.

I asked Mom if she was afraid of the oncoming storm, and she replied, “No.” She had just confessed hope in Christ and wasn’t the least bit scared.

After Grandmother planted the ax, she, Mom, and the other children were in the house when the tornado closed in on them. Grandmother called it a cyclone.

What happened?

Mom said the cyclone shuffled the house a few inches from the chimney.

Did the ax split the storm?

Mom said she thinks it did because there was no other damage. The tiny wooden house was a reed in the wind, but it was left standing, and no one was injured.

And they praised God!

I was curious to learn more about the ax and storm phenomenon. So, I googled it and discovered that the Wichitas, Native American Indians had such a ritual. They would throw an ax into the ground to split a storm so it would go around the tribe. Some tribes put a knife in the ground to deflect a storm.

I told Mom about my findings and told her perhaps grandmother learned the ritual from the Native Americans. Mom said she probably did.

Some Native American tribes like the Kiowas also believed in talking to storms. And there are stories that the ritual actually worked, and the storm turned.

Luke 1:37 (KJV) says, “For with God nothing shall be impossible.”

Our prayers are with all those affected by the December storms of 2021.

Be safe.