Of Thunderstorms and Whispers

It was a dark and stormy night, and ... now wait, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I'm beginning the story this way for dramatic effect. Well, yes, that's true, but it really was a dark and stormy night, a night that featured a thunderous downpour and the most intense lightning display I had seen since I lived in the Midwest years before.

This was back in August, 1989, so long ago that it was even before my wife and I had kids. I think evolutionists (not me) call that the Parentnotyetoic Period. My wife was still working as a software developer, and she was at a conference in Boston. It was near midnight, and I was in the kitchen baking a Jefferson Davis pie. Specifically, I had baked the body of the pie and was finishing by baking the meringue topping on the pie.

Flash!
Crash!

I'd see a flash of lightning so intense that it would have left Ben Franklin smiling with glee, and a moment or two later I'd hear the thunder.

Flash!
Crash!

I was also cleaning up the dishes. Again, the crashing was following the flashing by a moment or two.

Flash!
Crash!

I checked the timer and peeked in the oven window. The meringue still had a couple minutes to go.

FLASH!
CRASH!

Wow, that one was close. The crash wasn't even a second behind the flash. I ran to the bay window in the kitchen and looked out. That lightning may have even struck somewhere in the neighborhood. I'll bet it ...

FLASHCRASH!

Every hair on my head (and I had a lot back then) stood straight up. Every hair on my body stood straight up. I was really confused, and there was something very wrong. At the same time, there was a loud high-pitched whistle; the answering machine was beeping; there was a loud buzz coming from the family room; and all I could think about was, "Oh no! I hope the meringue on the pie isn't ruined!"

I ran over to the oven. In retrospect, I'm not sure I knew what I was doing. I pulled the pie out of the oven though.

The next step was to run through the house and try to turn off or unplug everything that was making noises. I unplugged the answering machine. The smoke alarm was beeping, so I unplugged that as well. The stereo was buzzing. Uh oh, that's not good, I realized. I hadn't been playing the stereo. It sounded like I was listening to static on high volume. I couldn't get it to turn off with the switch, so I unplugged it. I went into the garage and flipped the breakers in the switch box back on.

My heart was racing and I was still feeling confused. It hadn't really registered with me yet what had happened. I just knew that something was really wrong.

I walked from room to room throughout the house, looking for anything suspicious. I didn't find anything else.

At some point along the way, it slowly dawned on me that either the house had been hit by lightning or that a nearby tree was hit and perhaps some of it discharged onto the house. I put on a jacket and went outside in the downpour. It was raining way too hard to determine anything, but I didn't see anything burning, so that was a good sign.

To wrap up the story, yes, the house had been hit by lightning. In fact, a two foot chunk of the eaves, two stories directly above where I had been standing in the kitchen, was blasted off of the house. Some of our appliances and our stereo were basically melted, and the ground fault interrupt was dead.

But the Jefferson Davis pie was perfect. In fact, it was awesome. I'll post the recipe sometime.

The raw power unleashed in the storm that night was frightening. And yet the very same God who can make the earth tremble also knows how many hairs are on your head (whether those hairs are standing up or not), and He knows when a sparrow falls.

The magnitude of his power is unimaginable, but so is the depth of his compassion. One soft whisper of his breath could wipe out out the universe if He so chose; but his whisper also called the young boy Samuel to serve him, setting the stage years later for King David in Israel.

God certainly gets our attention with unrelenting storms. Does He get your attention when He whispers your name?