Chalk one up for Dr. LaHaye...

It was a night that Armageddon lovers dream about. Days earlier, all hell had broken loose in the Middle East. Israel's response to Hezbollah had not been approved by the rest of the world. The correspondence with biblical predictions was obvious: the End will begin with a war, and with the world turning against Israel.

Then, as if to embody God's final wrath, one of the worst storms in recent memory passes through northeastern North America.

Picture this: you're sitting in your living room around 7:30 p.m. watching the tube. It's still daylight outside. But in a span of mere minutes, you notice that the world outside your patio door has gone black as midnight.

You rush to the window to see what put out the sun. There above you roils a grey apocalyptic sea. Angry clouds the colour of ash spin like an otherwordly whirlpool above your house. Eerily, there's not a breath of wind on the ground.

You try to remember what you've learned about tornadoes from shows like 'World's Most Amazing Videos.' Sit in the bathtub? Hide in a doorway? Cling to the rock in the basement and weep?

Just as you're calling the dog to the basement door, you glance outside once again. That's odd. Had your husband installed red lightbulbs in the outdoor security lights? No, wait. THE SKY IS BLOOD RED. Forget clinging to the rock. The big J is coming back and there is nowhere to hide, people. The freaking sky is BLOOD RED. You run to the windows on the other side of the house, just to see if your eyes have betrayed you. They haven't.

Then the storm unleashes itself. Thunder shakes the very foundation of your home. Whizzing carpets of sheet lightning tear the sky apart, driving rain and hail to the quivering earth below. You back away from the window and sit quietly on your darkened bed, wondering when it will end.

As the flashing sky assaults your retinas with negative images of tall pines and maples, you think about the families you know--Canadian families--who went to visit their relatives in Lebanon a few days earlier. Their sky is red too. Lights flash all around them. Their homes shake under the impossible powers that dwarf these everyday men and women. And children. You think about the Canadian family of seven who died, terrified in their blackened holdiay home, as the red skies rained down on them. Your mind tries to un-see, tries not to imagine.

You thank God, or life, or the universe, or whatever may be out there, that the worst that could happen to you is that your tomatoes will get flattened or a branch will fall on your shed. There are fates so much worse.

And you wonder, once again, how any sane person could crave Armageddon.