So.

Dan and I were on a hiking date when lightning struck our house Sunday afternoon. We had come down from the mountains to get out of the rain and found a sunny spot in Denver City Park to eat our picnic when we saw how black the sky looked out east in the direction of our house. We didn't worry too much about it, though. We've had a lot of rain lately, and both Kevvy (20) and my brother, Steve (over 20), were home with the kids. Dan had been texting back and forth with Kevin, in fact, over trivial things while we watched a jazz band prep for a concert in the park. Everything seemed to be fine; Dan and Kev were comparing notes on the Rockies or something. Until, out of the blue, Kevin texts: The house just got hit by lightning.

!

And, so it apparently had. There was a terrific storm that seems to have centered right over our house. The kids said they watched it coming at them, lightning flashing, thunder crashing all around them like they were in the middle of a violent bowling tournament. And there was no mistaking when the house got hit. KABLAM! And the tv and lights all went out. Someone said there was a haze of red. A funny smell. The little girls screamed, of course. But everyone was ok; it was a thrill ride for them, it seems. And, there were no holes in the roof, no smoke, no fire. The only thing they found amiss was that the computer wouldn't come back on; our surge protector (bless it) had given up its life to save the computer, and the modem apparently died in sympathy. William slept through the whole storm, but everyone else has a good story to tell about it. It was a little bit of a bummer that there wouldn't be e-mail or Facebook for a couple of days, but other than that, no harm was done.

Because we have lightning rods.

A few years ago, believe it or not, we had a lightning rod salesman come to our door. We told him we didn't need any lightning rods; already have 'em. He said, "Aw, let me take a look at those." And he craned his neck up to the peak of our steep old roof and was downright tickled to get a look at our antique lightning rods. He didn't often see any as old as ours; he thought they had been installed before the 1930s. He checked them out for soundness, though, and said they were all hooked up properly and he didn't see any reason they wouldn't still work. He didn't even want to sell us any new ones. (All salesmen should be so nice.) And it appears he was right. Those old lightning rods still do the job. Bless the soul of the old farmer who took care of that for us so long ago. I wonder how many times this house has been saved because of his precaution?

The nice lady at our tiny-town phone company told me, when I called to see about getting our modem replaced, that she'd just gotten off the phone with another family nearby who had been hit by lightning Sunday. They were needing to replace their modem like we were -- but also their roof. They were all ok, thanks be to God. But, I'm wondering if they're going to see about finding a lightning rod salesman.