So thankful for a blessing in disguise

Good evening friends.  I hope all of you have had a happy weekend.  It has been pretty uneventful here. However, tonight I realized how eventful our weekend could have been.
We had a storm a week or two ago.  Darbee and I were home alone and lightning came out of nowhere and struck right outside our house. Everything went dark and there we were.  She was scared to death.  I have to admit, I was too.  It was so loud.  It had blown a transformer across the street from us and luckily power was back on in about 2 hours.
Yesterday, a storm quickly blew up and I was home alone.  It rained a little and that was it.  Everything was quiet.  Out of nowhere again, lightning struck and it was close.  I saw a bright blue flash and heard an extremely loud pop.  I screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin.  I thought it struck something in the kitchen.  I checked to make sure everything was working and it was.  Whew.  The storm got pretty nasty, but luckily nothing was damaged that I knew of.

Now...fast forward to today.....

I guess in today's day and time, we are always more cautious of our surroundings.  We have always felt pretty safe where we live.  This afternoon, hubby decided to wash the car. He went to the barn out back to retrieve his bucket and supplies and came in holding something.  Upon closer inspection, it was a broken light bulb.  He said obviously, someone had been messing around our barn and had broken the light bulb off into the fixture.  Hmmm....makes you a little squeamish.

This evening, we were outside talking to my mom and dad and my dad noticed one of the tall pine trees behind our house was dying.  Hmm..that was strange.  It hadn't been like that just the other day.  It was now totally brown. When I started looking at it, I noticed another huge tree beside it.  Way up in the top, there were two big limbs that had streaks where there was no bark.  Then it hit me.  The big pop the other week was the pine tree! The big pop yesterday was the other sweet gum tree next to it.  Wow.  That's it!

You can't really tell by the picture, but the one on the far left is the dying pine tree.  

The one right in the middle of the picture is the sweet gum tree that the bark was missing on. 

Hubby and my dad went in the back yard to check it out.  Yup...I was right.  I went back there with them and there was bark everywhere.  It was like the tree exploded! And the crazy thing?  The bark had black streaks on it where it "burnt." Yikes. It was everywhere!

It was crazy.  

There was bark probably 15 ft. from the tree. 

We also found the spot where the lightning went into the ground.

Wow...so glad no one was around near the tree!  

So...this one too will die.  Ugh...do we go ahead and have them cut?  I don't know.

Then it hit me again.  I wondered if the big "boom" made the light bulb on the barn break?  

The barn sits about 10 ft. from the tree to the right.  Hmmm....hubby thought that was a good speculation and decided to check inside the barn to see if the light inside still worked.

We were both astonished at what we found inside.

No, the light did not work...the wiring was fried.

Just look...

Do you see that big black spot on the board and the roof? 

Ummm...yea.  That is where the boards were on fire.

Lightning also hit the barn and melted the electrical wiring.  

Can you see where the coating on the wire melted?  It left just the wires exposed.

We are both so thankful that the barn didn't burn down.  I don't know how it didn't.  Well...I do...it was truly God.

We also found one of the fuses in the fuse box burned.

Hubby pulled it out.  The power is now turned off to the building.

So...tonight, I am heading to bed so thankful for blessings in disguise.  

Had the light bulb not been broken, we would not have found out about the wiring.  

What are you thankful for this evening?

I hope you have stopped to thank the One for your blessings.

Until next time....