A Strange Thing Happened by Rosanne Catalano, Aka R.C.Kayla

It was my 50^th birthday and I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or God answering my desperate plea. But most of the morning and afternoon of June 14^th the sun was shining outside although it was very humid. Around 6:30 p.m., I had to water our plants so I walked out of our air-conditioned house and into the hot, humid day. My husband had gone to buy me a birthday cake from the local bakery and I knew I had enough time to water the plants before he came home. Just as I was walking down the front steps, however, my constant back pain became so much worse that I could barely take another step. So I began to pray "Please God, can you water these plants for me so they won't die? They really need the water today but I'm in more pain today than yesterday and I know it'll get worse when I lift our heavy hose..."

All of a sudden the clear, blue sky turned cloudy and dark. So I retraced my steps and went back inside our house. I decided to work on the computer for a while until my hubby returned. While I was on the computer, all of our lights suddenly went dead and so did the computer. I immediately went back outside, and looking at the sky, said "Gee God, I only wanted you to water the plants not drench them! But I do thank you for watering our plants for me..."

I was still standing there looking up at the sky in amazement when my husband drove into our driveway, with a worried look on his face. "What happened?" he asked, sticking his head out the car window as I walked over to him. I put my head inside, smiled reassuringly and told him the fur babies and I were okay but that the entire block had just had a blackout (at that time I thought it was just our block; found out the next day it was the entire State.) My husband smiled and said, "No problem! We've got a couple of big flashlights that'll last a long time..." I went back inside the way I had come - through our front door. My hubby came inside through our garage entrance and put the cake he had bought into the refrigerator.

We then coaxed our fur babies from under the bed; they had been hiding there with the first burst of thunder and lightening. We then gathered up all of the big flashlights, some candles, and sat on our living room couch with our fur babies resting nearby. My hubby and I sat on the couch talking about anything and everything until we both suddenly realized with no electricity, my birthday cake was going to spoil in the refrigerator! And since we weren't sure how long we would be without electric, we hurriedly ate the Strawberry Shortcake. That's one thing we hadn't thought of - that a refrigerator only runs on electricity and, with the blackout, everything inside the refrigerator would go bad if they didn't get the electric back on soon! Once hubby and I were done eating our slices by both flashlight and candles, we went outside to share some of the cake with our neighbors. We and the neighbors all sat on our front porch eating cake from paper plates and laughing and talking for what I think was three hours; during the blackout, none of us had any concept of what time it was or how much time had passed since most of our clocks also run on electricity.

The next day I found out why my hometown had a blackout the night of my 50^th birthday. All of New York State had torrential rainstorms with thunder and lightening so bad that bolts of lightening struck wires and trees; causing both wires and trees to fall on parked cars and knock out electricity to 20,000 people. However we, and some of our neighbors, also got major flooding in our downstairs living area and basements. Thank God, though, that the blackout only lasted about six and a half hours! I couldn't imagine having to clean up knee-deep water in the dark. So the actual night of my birthday we didn't worry about the flooding, we just shut the door connecting downstairs to our upstairs. Sunday morning we cleaned up what water was left; most of the flood water had receded overnight. Thank God!

What an interesting and strange way to spend my 50th birthday though - in the dark with only candlelight and flashlights to see with and conversing with some neighbors we ordinarily don't! I had never spent any of my birthdays like this year's. The blackout ended up lasting until about 1:30 a.m. but hubby and I didn't know this until the next morning; hours after all the neighbors went back to their respective houses, we had fallen asleep in our bed cuddled up with one another and our fur babies. The next morning I found out from one of our neighbors who had stayed up, that the electric company had fixed the lights at around 1:30 in the morning.

Now I can honestly say that my husband and I will remember the night of my 50^th birthday for the rest of our lives, although each in different ways. I wasn't happy at all about the blackout. However I was happy that either a coincidence happened or God had really answered my prayer. Because the rain saved my back from the torturous pain of having to pull the water hose over to our plants! But I actually think my husband enjoyed my birthday blackout; he thought of it as an 'adventure.' Either way, it brought us even closer to one another and closer to all our neighbors. God does work in very 'mysterious' ways ... or was it just a coincidence and we got the tail end of the storms ravaging the Midwest States? I like to think it was God working in His mysterious and strange way of answering heartfelt prayers.

Copyright © June 2008 Rosanne Catalano.

Website: www.rosannecatalano.net

Email: ctrosanne@verizon.net