Summmer storms can be sudden and wild where I live, in Queensland, Australia, and for us in the Southern Hemisphere, December is the middle of the summer.
The last month of 2010 was particularly bad. Seventy-five percent of our very large state was declared a disaster zone because of flooding, and blackouts were extremely common.
One night the week before New Year’s I was checking my e-mail on the computer and my six-year-old son, Ethan, was playing in another room when the lights went out.
My neighbors and I had gotten used to dealing with the temporary stretches of darkness, but if there was one thing my son feared more than the violent storms we’d been getting, it was blackouts.
“Mum!” he screamed. “Help!”
I rushed to him and gathered him in my arms. We sat down together and as I cuddled him on my lap I looked out the window. The whole street had gone dark.
“I’m scared!” Ethan said.
“Let’s pray,” I said. “God, please bring the lights back.”
Not a moment later the room lit up again.
“That’s better, isn’t it?” I asked Ethan. He nodded, rubbing his teary eyes.
I prayed a quick thank-you as I helped Ethan get ready for bed and tucked him in.
Just as I was leaving his room I noticed that the streetlight wasn’t shining through the gap in his curtains as it usually did. I stepped outside to investigate. The rest of the neighborhood was still in darkness. Only our house was lit up, glowing like a single candle.
“Ethan!” I said, getting him out of bed and bringing him outside to see. “Look! Ours is the only house with its lights on!”
Ethan didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. He didn’t know how blackouts usually worked. But I knew that God had answered a mother’s prayer and allayed a little boy’s fear.
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