It all started with what seemed to be a promising summer’s day: the sun blazing hotter than ever and scorching our already pale grass; light, puffy clouds in the sky; and songbirds danced through the air as they chirped away. After being stuck in the house for hours doing classes, I was eager to get out and see the commotion for myself. Besides, I needed a few pictures for my online photo journal, and the scene would be perfect. All I needed was to go out for a photo walk to my favorite pond and shoot all I wanted.

However, there was a mild problem, to say the least. It was an unspoken rule in our household that no matter where we wanted to go in the neighborhood, we couldn’t walk alone. I either had to take all my siblings with me to the pond or not go at all. Well, I thought. That should be simple enough. As soon as I could, I asked my siblings to join me. Immediately, my youngest siblings were in agreement, but my other brother, Truman, held out.

“Well, you know there’s going to be a thunderstorm coming soon, right?” He asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “I don’t know if it’s just me, but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any thunderstorm, actually.”

He shook his head. “I know, but I checked the weather earlier. We have a high chance of rain.”

I rolled my eyes. “When it looks like rain, we’ll turn back. It won’t even take long. C’mon.”

I practically dragged him out of the house, but in the end, my pleading won out. Within minutes we had pulled out our bikes and were ready to pedal away. Just as I mounted my bike and prepared to go the usual route toward the pond, my brother called out from behind me: “Lailah, look at that!”

I bit my lip—He’s probably trying to make me stay back—and looked back at him. “What?” I asked. He pointed to something ahead of me. It looked like a water spout, a skinny, dark grey-blue cone, swirling with the wind in the distance. I had learned about those in eighth grade: a tell-tale sign of a storm. Well, I reasoned, it’s so far off, and really it will only take me a few minutes to take these photos, so ….

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just hurry.” I shouted back to him. I pushed all thoughts of the water spout out of my head while we cycled to the pond. When we arrived, I waited for my siblings to busy themselves and then got to work, hunting for the perfect spot. At last, I found the right composition: Tall, green reeds formed marshes along the sides of the pond, and there was an opening just small enough to frame my photo. If I angled my camera slightly upwards, I could catch the gentle ripples in the water and an innocent duck perched on the top of it. Perfect. I rested my finger on the shutter and—

“Lailah! Lailah!!!” I whipped around, nearly dropping my camera in the mud. What now?!

My brother, Truman, screamed and waved his arms wildly in the air. “The storm is here. We need to go, now!” I was so in the zone that I hadn’t even heard what caused him to scream. I realized that the formerly sunny atmosphere now looked darker and gloomier. It looked like rain—but not a storm. I had time.

“One second!” I said. I turned back to my composition until I heard an earsplitting thunderclap. Okay, that’s it. I ran from my spot up the small incline to where my bike stood. The wind was starting to pick up, and small rocks and bits of dirt flew along with it. In the distance, I could see a curtain of rain pushing its way closer and closer.

The first droplet landed on my back. Then came the next. And the next.

Eyes wide, I looked around to secure my siblings. My sister had fallen off her bike as her shoe slipped in the rain drops that landed on her pedal. I hurried to help her back on, thinking the whole time about the thunderclaps and the rain wall and the clouds and how Truman had told me again and again not to go—and now we were stuck in this situation. Something bright jarred my attention, and I looked over my sister’s head in time to see a bolt of lightning strike a house just yards away from me. We were running out of time.

Mounting out bikes, we pedaled as hard as our legs could go, the wind tossing us back and forth and the rain drenching our clothes. Debris irritated my eyes as I screamed and told my siblings to hurry. This was all my fault. We could be in real danger if we didn’t get home before the bulk of the thunderstorm caught up to us. I prayed over and over that we would make it home safely and thankfully we did, right before the torrential downpour began.

This horrible experience could have been easily avoided if I had done one thing: listened to my brother. The whole time, I was focused on attaining my own selfish goals. I wasn’t listening to wisdom when I heard it. I brushed aside my brother’s warning—He’s just a little kid. He doesn’t know any better. It won’t take me long anyway. This way of thinking led to a dangerous situation that could have gotten my siblings and me hurt.

In reality, lessons like this can occur to all of us in times we least expect it to. Although likely not as dramatic as this example, there have certainly been instances where we have been warned not to do something (or to do something) that would benefit us or protect us from harm—either by our siblings, our friends or our parents. Of course we should obey our elders, but that doesn’t mean we can dismiss what our peers or those younger than us say. No matter how old—or young—the bearers of the warning are, if they are telling us something wise, we should listen. Wisdom can come where you least expect it, and listening to those precious words could save your life.