It was a dark and stormy night. Really.

I was 15 or maybe 16. My friends had just dropped me off from an outing at the movies. The heavens were raging. Though they pulled the car close to the little portico—an isolated door on the first-floor side of our two-story house, I was still fairly damp from the few feet trip from the car to the door, even with an umbrella. 

I stood there under the door awning while my friends backed up and drove away. Tall oak trees swayed in the wind. Every few seconds the world whitened with lightning, thunder booming close on its heels. I watched the fury, mesmerized, when from somewhere above me a deep male voice called my name. 

Stunned, I questioned whether I had really heard it. Again—my name—followed by the lightening-thunder combo. He wasn’t messing around. And neither was I. I knew what I’d heard. This time, I stepped out into the storm and looked up.

“Is that you, God?”

No answer.

Not knowing what else to say, I tried. “I’m here,” which sounded a little stupid. Of course He would know that.

A couple of things flashed through my mind—Moses at the burning bush. Or Samuel. Maybe a minor prophet. I was wanted for something.

When the sky didn’t part and nothing caught fire, I went inside, dripping puddles on the floor. What was I going to say? How was I going to explain that I had been called, personally named though I didn’t yet know what for. 

I went upstairs and found my father lounging on the bed reading Popular Mechanics. “You’re soaking wet,” he said. 

I tried to explain. “I heard a voice call my name.” I paused unsure how to say the rest.

“Oh, that was me.”

“What?”

“I installed an intercom downstairs, over the door, so I could check who was there.”

My career path had just taken a sharp turn. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh in relief or cry. I was almost a prophet. 

T.K. Thorne is a retired police captain (Birmingham, Alabama), former director of City Action Partnership, and an award-winning author of fiction and non-fiction.

 I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. 

Feel free to explore my website and books while you are here, but if you arrived by way of my blog on Substack, here’s the way back.

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