Woman says God saved her life by telling her to finish movie before tree crashed into bedroom

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Thursday, July 16, 2026

A Florida woman is singing praises to God for saving her life after He stopped her from going to bed at her usual time when a tree crashed into her bedroom during a thunderstorm.

The woman, Pamela Randall of Northside Jacksonville, told News4Jax that she would normally be in bed by about 5 p.m. Last Saturday, however, as a thunderstorm ripped through her area around that time, she was watching a movie in her living room and wasn’t done. Instead of turning off the television and going straight to bed, Randall says she was compelled to keep watching the movie because God told her to finish it.

“God told me to stay here, finish watching my movie,” Randall recalled to the news outlet.

As she continued watching the movie, Randall said she was shocked when the tree came crashing into her home because she didn’t have any on her property.

“I was on the porch, and I was soaking wet. I was screaming. I was screaming, and nobody heard me,” she said.

When she checked her bedroom, she saw that the tree had come through her window and crashed into her bed.

“My bed is destroyed,” she said. “There’s a tree over there, and like I said, I normally be in my bedroom around 5, and this happened between 5, between 6, and 6.30,” she told News4Jax. 

Randall said she was so traumatized by the ordeal she cried for two days and struggled to sleep.

“Emotional, stressed and drained, and I cried for two days,” she said. “I didn’t sleep for two days. I finally got some rest last night.”

Despite the trauma and damage to her home, Randall credits living to tell the story about the tree crashing into her home as an assurance of God’s protection.

“A lot of people didn’t wake up Sunday morning,” she said. “He had His angels all over me.”

In 2025, 34 people were killed in the U.S. by trees or branches sent flying by high winds, including from thunderstorms, according to NOAA's Storm Data database. Only two of those deaths happened in a single-family home.