The Miracle of the Lightning Strike

Picture by Hunt_on_Photos_Studio Pixabay

It’s been very, very hot where we live. So it was a great relief when a storm rolled in last week.

We have a good view where we live and we could see it rolling in from miles away.

I brought the porch furniture inside and then I rescued Dad’s water bottle collection, which he keeps in a black bin by the rubbish bin. He’s recently found out where he can return them for a small fee, and I didn’t think he’d like his treasured collection to go dancing merrily down the road with the rain and the strong winds.

I put the jug on and happily waited for the rain to start pelting the house.

I like rain.

In fact, I recently learned there is a word for people like me: Pluviophile. Apparently, the ‘Pluvio’ bit is Latin for rain and the ‘phile’ bit is Greek for lover.

It’s actually a very nice word, but except for here, where I can properly explain just what it is, I don’t go around telling people that I’m a ‘pluviophile’.

Anyway, when the storm finally reached our house, I was in a state of excitement.

There was a nice big wind, making the trees dance around in the garden. There were giant plops of rain, smacking down on the garden path and turning into gliding bubbles.

Best of all, there were loud, exciting cracks of thunder.

Now, this next bit is going to be a bit shocking for some of you wiser readers. In my defence…I was raised in New Zealand…where thunder mainly attends sheet lightning.

If we do get fork lightning in New Zealand, I never saw any.  

Which is why, overcome with enthusiasm for the storm, I plunged out the door to frolic in the rain.

Oh it was lovely fun!

I went splishing and stomping in the puddles, and if any of you are now snorting something rude like ‘how old are you?” at your screen, then the answer is eight.

Most definitely eight.

Anyway, there I was, stomping happily in a puddle between the clothesline next to the garden and the air conditioner unit on the side of the house.

Suddenly, I heard a friendly little voice inside my head, and it said, “don’t you think you ought to go inside now, Ruth?”

“Why would I do that?” I asked the mysterious little voice. “I’m having a lovely time!”

“Because,” said the voice calmly, “you don’t want to get hit by lightning, do you?”

“I’m not going to get hit by lightning!” I assured the voice. I was about to jump in another puddle when something stopped me.

There had been something vaguely different about that voice in my head. It was so calm and quiet, not at all like the noisy, slightly chaotic stuff that usually rattled through my brain.

“I don’t think that’s you, God,” I said. “But maybe it is, so I’ll go inside just in case.”

So I went inside.

I stood, looking at the rain through the screen door. I stood there for three minutes.

CRASH!

It was like an explosion had hit our house. The lights went out and an enormous jet of fire shot through the air conditioner’s power socket.

I watched it burning the rubber on the plug with rising alarm. “Mum!” I yelled. “Can you come down here, please?”

“Have we lost the power?” called Mum.

“Err, we’ve got a bit more of a situation than that.”

By the time she got there, the fire had put itself out.

Thank God for that.

We must have put our fire extinguisher somewhere awfully safe and logical, because I couldn’t find it.

“What happened?” said Mum, gazing at the scorched ceiling.

“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “But I think lightning might have hit our house. And it’s the strangest thing, but I was standing in just that spot three minutes before it happened, and a little voice told me to go inside.”

“That must have been God!” said Mum.

I looked at the singed roof. “I think it must have been,” I agreed.

The electrician has been and confirmed that the house was indeed struck by lightning.

I find that my mind keeps running over the fact that I was standing in that exact spot three minutes previously.

And I don’t think the message is that God will always tell me to move when danger is coming. I think the message might be, that God will always know when danger is coming.

And if he doesn’t tell me about it, then there must be a really good reason for him leaving me where I am.

So I guess what I learned this week is regardless of what God does or doesn’t tell me, I can trust him.

That, and, don’t frolic in thunderstorms.

Turns out, they’re pretty dangerous!

Love, Ruthie

The writing belongs to R.M. Hamilton. The Picture was graciously provided by Picture by Hunt_on_Photos_Studio over at Pixabay.