I’m writing this for a friend—the state of Oklahoma, who I consider a close personal friend of mine.

I know you wouldn’t usually refer to a whole state as your friend, but that’s what I’m doing here.

Today, a tornado swept through Oklahoma’s bosom. Four people were killed. Over a hundred injured. Two deaths in Holdenville. Another near Marietta. Another in Murray County. Thousands are without power. Even more are grieving.

As I write this, nearly 7 million people across America’s midriff are under a tornado warning. From Texas to Wisconsin. By the time you read this, more destruction could have happened.

I first learned of the Oklahoma tornadoes when I got an email from a friend outside Sulphur, Oklahoma.

“I don’t know if you’re even getting this email, Sean,” the note began. “Our phone service is down, and we don’t have any power… But if you can say a prayer for us, it would mean so much.”

Sulphur. A Rockwellian town of about 5,000. Houses and buildings are rubble. Cars were flung. Busses moved. The rooftops were scraped off.

“You just can’t believe the destruction,” said Oklahoma Governor, Kevin Stitt. “It seems like every business downtown has been destroyed.”

Things started getting bad on Saturday. The weather service reported that two tornadoes were crossing Oklahoma’s Highway 9. Between Goldsby and Blanchard. There was another sighting east of Tinker Air Force Base. Another tornado headed toward Norman.

“I don’t know what were going to do,” said my friend in the aftermath. “I don’t know how were going to get over this.”

Well, I don’t know much, either. But I know one thing about Oklahoma. They are resilient.

Long before the World Trade Center attacks in New York, I remember being glued to the television after an Oklahoma City truck bomb killed 168 people and injured over 500 in 1995.

I remember the witnesses being interviewed on news channels were all saying the same kinds of things people say after national disasters. “How are we going to get over this?” “How will we go on?” “What’s going to happen to us?”

Well, recently I visited Oklahoma City. I visited the Survivor Tree. An American elm tree in the heart of downtown Oklahoma City. The tree survived the bomb’s blast and endured one of the worst events on American Soil.

I was moved by the whole city. Oklahoma City was totally rebuilt. They have an NBA team, a music hall, a vibrant water sports scene on the Oklahoma River, the Bricktown area is arrestingly wonderful.

But the elm tree moved me the most.

Because while we were exploring it, the people who were there with us, visiting the memorial, weren’t out-of-town tourists, or visitors from other states like I expected.

They were Oklahomans. They were that same mixture of toughened American DNA you find in that part of the country. The kind of people you only read about in Zane Gray novels.

Oklahomans are a unique people. A little Western, a little Midwestern, equal parts Southern, and every bit American.

I remember an older lady crying at the Survivor Tree, she said she used to park her car beneath this tree, long ago. On work days.

And I remember a little kid holding her hand, who said, “What is this tree, Grandma?”

“It’s a symbol,” she replied.

“What’s that mean?” the boy asked.

She wiped her face with her sleeve. “It means that we are strong,” she said. “A lot stronger than we think we are.”

So I will gladly say a prayer for Oklahoma. And pray devoutly I will. I hope everyone else will too. But as it happens, I don’t know that my feeble prayers are necessary.

Because you heard what the lady said.