When Lightning Strikes

In an instant---less than a second, in the flash of lightning, life can change. And then life is never the same.

My friend Ronnie Lindsey was struck by lightning. Ronnie is an electrician and had just completed a job for his company, Lanham Refrigeration Heating and Air Conditioning. As he was leaving, the person who had needed the repairs half-jokingly warned “Be careful and don’t get struck by lightning.” It turned out to be no laughing matter.

As Ronnie was putting his tools back in the company van, he heard thunder. Glancing skyward, he started to step away from the van but before he could, he felt the lightning surge from his feet through his body. Momentarily stunned, Ronnie immediately took stock of himself and realized he had survived a lighting strike. All he could say was, “Thank you sweet Jesus for letting me live.”

Thank you indeed.

Ronnie’s chances of being struck by lightning were about 1 in 700,000. Yet, there are enough electrical storms out there to make lighting strikes one the leading causes of weather related deaths in the USA. An average of 73 people are killed by lightning each year and about 300 are injured. The fact that Ronnie had been handling metal tools increased his chances of attracting lightning. But Ronnie was partially in the van, which had rubber tires, and that may have lessened the severity of the shock. One thing is for sure: Ronnie Lindsey is grateful to be alive. Getting struck by lightning has a way of bringing life and death into focus.

In an instant--- less than a second, in the flash of lightning, life can change. And then life is never the same.

In Ronnie’s case, it’s the same but different. Even though he has the same job with the same people with the same duties in the same town with the same family, life can never be quite the same. Close encounters with death are reminders of life’s precarious nature.

Like the storms they accompany, lightning happens when we least expect it. The once intact marriage is quite suddenly broken; the financially secure retirement evaporates as quickly as you can say, “Stock market crash;” the promising job opportunities vanish, it seems, the moment you get that diploma; and the once secure job is as tenuous as the clean bill of health. In a flash, the bat of the eye, the lightning-strike-moment, it’s all gone. Everything we depended on as certain, nailed down--- is all at once up in the air, floating away, just beyond our grasp.

People, not just the weather, change: that person you’ve lived with for 25 years surprises you; the co-worker you shared your heart with turns on you; the friend you trusted takes you to court; the child you dreamed for, undoes you.

Maybe it was inspired by Linda Keith, a Rolling Stones groupie---the former girlfriend of the band’s Keith Richards--- but it is true for many of the people you know: “Goodbye Ruby Tuesday, who could hang a name on you?/ When you change with every new day/Still I’m gonna miss you.” Ahh, the people who change, the people we somehow miss. It’s sad but true: some people change with every new day. They increase the odds of you getting struck.

And then suddenly it happens--- the lightning strikes, revealing the reality of the hypocrisy, the evasiveness of the truth, the masquerade of the façade. And life is never the same for us.

In an instant---less than a second, in the flash of lightning, life can change. And then life is never the same.

Mr. Daws, in the film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was struck by lightning, not once, not twice, but seven times. Like Ronnie, and many others, it happened in the ordinary activities of life. For Mr. Dawes it happened once when he was in the field just tending the cows, once when he was in his truck just minding his own business, once when he was repairing a leak on his roof, once when he was crossing the road to get the mail, once when he was walking his dog, and…and… what about the other two times, Mr. Dawes? Oh well, it doesn’t’ matter. Once you’ve been struck by lightning, you lose count. It happens to all of us, doesn’t it? It’s happened to you, hasn’t it? More times than you care to number.

You’ve been struck by lightning. And I believe you can identify with Mr. Dawes description of himself: “Blinded in one eye; can't hardly hear. I get twitches and shakes out of nowhere; always losing my line of thought. But you know what? God keeps reminding me I'm lucky to be alive. Storm's comin'.”


Yes indeed. Despite the previous hits we’ve taken, storms are still coming. And we are lucky to be alive. Aren’t we?

“Thank you, sweet Jesus, for letting me live.”


Life Matters, is written by David B. Whitlock, Ph.D. David’s email is drdavid@davidbwhitlock.com. You can also visit his website, www.DavidBWhitlock.com.