***This post is one of my first from August 2005. We've been having a few "thunder boomers" around here lately, but nothing like what I experienced on the coast. I love the power God exerts over His creation via the storms He allows us to witness.

We had the coolest thing happen the other night. We live in a town that gets more than the average share of lightning and thunder. I've never seen a place that lights up like this one. So, while my DH was out running errands during a storm -- it was only thunder and lightning, no rain -- I gathered all three kids, and we watched the storm.

Libbyline was fascinated by all the colors that were illuminated by the flashes of lightning. Sweetcheeks was caught up in the cloud formations, and John Deere Green had a grand time trying to outdo the claps of thunder that seemed to shake our windows silly.

I am a writer by trade, but have joked that I've been suffering from a 10-year writer's block. I seemed to have used up all my creative, journalistic brain cells in making babies -- leaving very few for any current or future epics. So, when I got a burst of creativity during this storm, I jumped on it and wrote it down in a spiral notebook in the dark. I did it in the dark by the light of the storm so as to not spoil the moment. Here's what I came up with:

Flashes lighting up the sky
Thunder rumbles--
Sky so bright.
Dark and brooding-
'Tis really night?
Thunder crashes--
Sky so bright.
Lightning crackles
Blinking and winking
Across the sky.
Songs played out
Among dancing lights.

Flashes now slight,
Moving away,
Dark the night.
Raindrops dot the sky --
Sky so bright.
Thunder rumbles--
Returns to night.

Day break comes.
Dawning light
Washed with dew.
Gone the night.
Fresh from storms
Desperate night.
Welcome morning,
Welcome light.

It's far from Shakespeare or John Donne, but it captured what we were watching and experiencing at the time. I love storms--especially when I know we're inside and relatively safe. We found out later on our local news that our area had over 500 strikes of lightning in a less than two hour period. I was thrilled to have been privy to it!! God has a way of letting us in on His majesty, and I hope I take the time to truly enjoy it and include my children in it.

Have a great Monday!