STRUCK!

Okay - this might rank up there with the absolute craziest thing that's ever happened to us.

We went to bed on Saturday night, just like we would any other Saturday night.

I think we may have heard that storms would move through during the early morning hours, 

but I'm not even sure I could say that.

At 5 a.m., we awoke to what was the most indescribably loud clap of thunder.

It sounded like it hit the house.

Seriously.

Like, right outside our bedroom window.

As in, Bowdie thought for sure it had blown out the wall of windows in our bedroom.

After we caught our breath and realized what happened,

Bowdie immediately told me to go check on the boys.

Blaine is super scared of thunderstorms and we were afraid he would be very upset.

As I ran up the stairs, I heard a loud beeping sound going off in the basement.

Bowdie and I just looked at each other like, 'That's not the burglar alarm.  What is it??!'

He went down to the basement and opened the door to a room full of smoke.

Full. Of. Smoke.

He called me down.  I immediately was asking what I needed to do.

He said, 'We've got to find where this smoke is coming from!!'

He opened the door to his shop - more smoke.

Then, in an incredibly wise move, he decides that if he can't locate the source of the smoke,

then he has to get all the gas cans and gas powered vehicles outside.

So, even though it was still pouring ... I mean POURING down rain,

he startws getting stuff out as fast as he could.

In the meantime, he tells me to call 911.

Thank goodness I had my cell phone in my hand.

The dispatcher said to get everyone out of the house, even though we weren't seeing flames.

The firetrucks were on their way.

So my next call was to our neighbors - of course everyone in the neighborhood was awake due to the crack of thunder.  I'm telling you, it was crazy loud.

I ran the kids over and Chuck came down to help Bowdie.

As Bowdie opened the garage door at the basement, he saw a large piece of bark.

He thought that was weird, but kept working to find the source of the smoke

and get the rest of the flammable stuff out of the garage.

The ambulance arrived first - they actually went up and down our road a couple of times before they figured out where our house was.  We were trying our best to flag them down with flashlights,

but it was still pouring flooding.

The paramedic came in and assured us the firetrucks were on their way.

He began in the attic to check for fire.

He worked his way down to the basement and by the time he did,

the firetrucks arrived.

Several firemen came in and inspected the whole house.

Top to bottom.

They used a special device to try to detect any heat in the walls.

And miraculously, there was none.

No fire.

They really were amazed!

We call it a miracle.

Especially once you see the pictures ...

Not 1 but 2 firetrucks dispatched ...

Here's the piece of bark Bowdie saw when he opened the basement garage door.

Little did we know that it came from ...

THIS TREE!

The lightning actually struck the tree,

then ran into our house (we think) through the irrigation lines,

leaving this ...

That would be the place on the basement wall where the irrigation control panel used to be.

Here is what it looked like when we found it on the floor ...

Bolt has an invisible fence and the hub also got struck ... here's where we found it ...

... on the ground - notice how burnt it is.

There was also damage to the security system lines ...

It literally blew the sheetrock loose here.

You can barely see the burnt line under the window.

There's a burnt line right there!

And another one there. 

And if you followed the security systems wires up to the ceiling,

where they eventually head to the main floor hub,

there's damage too ...

See the burnt insulation around the wire??!

And then once we went upstairs to the closet where the security system hub is,

this is what we found:

...completely blew the door off the panel and singed a coat of mine 

and a coat of Bowdie's.  My goodness!!

Back in the basement, we continued to find more evidence of just how powerful the bolt was.

This helmet was actually on the ground when we found it.

But it had been on the shelf before the strike.

The shelf is across the basement from the irrigation panel.

The force had shot the helmet back against the light switch so hard

that it had literally caused the switch to be pushed into the wall.  Permanently.

Hard to tell in this pic, but switch on right is messed up.

Our nice, newly painted basement windows received some smoke marks where the security

sensors burnt out.  Scary!

Now back to that poor tree.

Chuck was the first to realize it had been hit.

It was so dark and rainy that it was hard to see.

But in the daylight ... it was quite a sight!

Stripped bare of every piece of bark!

This is the view from our basement so you can get a feel of how far the tree is from the house.

There was debris everywhere!

Across the street, all the way over to the Warbingtons ... everywhere!

This is on the other side of our house from the tree.

See that piece in the azaleas??!

This is looking up our yard from the tree.  

There was debris all the way across the street in our neighbor's yard.

This piece was across the street, positioned just like this.

This was some kind of pipe thing in the ground that was near the tree.

It got blown out!

This is the retaining wall just outside the basement.

See that low spot by the wall?

Blown out by the lightning!  Concrete from the wall was in the flower bed!

Wowsers.

So here's my take away from all this ...

as Chris Tomlin sings, 'He has told every lightning bolt where it should go.'

I'm grateful that He told this one to go for the tree.

And I'm so thankful that the He that could do all this

is also the He that loves us unconditionally,

saved us by extravagant grace,

and daily walks with us.

I'm thankful that the He that did all of this,

that He is on our side.

Amen.