My Interview with a Lineman and His Wife & A Look at God’s Mercy

For a few years, one of my children has talked about the (perceived) excitement of losing electricity. Other than a few years ago when the power went out for twenty minutes or so, my children have never been without power.

When our neighborhood lost power two years ago, we were out of state when it happened. Needless to say, my tween child’s hope for losing electricity has otherwise been a lifetime in waiting.

A few days before Christmas 2025, though, my child quickly recanted after our house lost power! I’m not trying to be dramatic because others had it MUCH worse, but we did lose power for almost 24 hours.

The power went off in the middle of the night, and the windstorm woke up 3 out of our family of 4. Yep, my one child who longingly hoped for the opportunity to be without power sat awake with me for hours and quickly decided that power outages were not wonderful after all!!

Honestly, it was my first main power outage as a momma. As a young, unmarried adult, I had “survived” the big 2007 ice storm & outage in Southwest Missouri. That days-long outage was actually much easier on me than the short 2025 outage with children.

I am now getting closer to explaining why I wanted to interview a lineman…

Not only was the recent outage my first with children, but it was my first outage that I had a friend (Jennifer) whose husband is a lineman.

God laid it on my heart to check on her during the outage because I knew there were plenty of others in the Pacific Northwest who had lost power. I knew she would be greatly affected by this event, too.

I later learned from Jennifer that her husband left for work in the middle of the night once the windstorm knocked out power for many. That was a humble “gut-punch” for me. Being awakened for hours in the middle of the night for two nights in a row was dreadful for me—a gal who requires sleep! Goodness, if I had to actually exit my house in the rain on those nights, too…oh my goodness, my attitude would have been terrible for sure!

I have a new-found appreciation for linemen and what they actively and selfishly do for the community members.

Now to the point:

Several nights after the power outage was just a memory, I decided to shoot Jennifer another text and ask if her husband might consider answering a few questions for me for this blog. He graciously agreed, and I also received great information from his wife, Jennifer, too!

Here’s a quick preface leading up to the interview, though. Not long after the 1^st windstorm knocked out power to tens of thousands, the weather forecasters started warning our area of another potential windstorm that could knock out even more power. Thankfully, that windstorm never came to fruition, but my selfish heart was unfortunately seen regardless.

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Interview:

Here’s a big thank you to Lineman, Riley Foster, for answering my questions and for sacrificing for the general public is such big ways! He has been a lineman in the Pacific Northwest for 27 years.

When I first texted Jennifer about a question I had for her husband, I typed the following:

“For me, my natural, selfish instinct would want to hold off and wait for the next windstorm to pass so that I didn't have to repeat the whole 'fixing process.' Is that something that linemen would even think about, or do they buckle down and do what's expected and not think about the possible pending storm?"

Thankfully, linemen aren’t selfish like me. Here is Riley’s response:

“We fixed the problems on the first storm because more than likely it will not come down in the same place during the second one. It might be the same outage but not the same wire.

There is also some pride in working very hard and fixing a problem that most other men can't.”

He also said, “As long as there is not an impending danger to us we do not stop until the power is back on. Only once did we step back during a storm. We were working an outage in Astoria and trees were falling on our trucks. The wind gusts were over 100 mph. My longest shift was 53 hours when I was younger. We are more restricted with our work hours now. We work 24 hours on and sleep 8. Then work 16 and sleep 8 repeatedly until everyone is restored. We stagger our sleep times so there are always crews working.”

I asked Jennifer if she had anything she’d like to add. I became a little teary-eyed when I read her response! I never realized the sacrifice that the families of linemen must make.

Here are Jennifer’s words:

“The upsides to being married to a lineman would be that it is a great career where I have the privilege of staying home with my kids...my favorite place! I also feel some of that pride when I pack his bag knowing he is going to help people. I watch the online outage maps during storms and follow as power is restored knowing that as each dot on the map disappears it means he is closer to coming home. The downsides would be when he leaves on a storm I never know when he will be home. I worry about his safety as one wrong move around high voltage electricity on a pole can kill you. There have been a handful of people who work in this trade who have made mistakes during his career and that is why I ask the Lord to surround him with His Angels on these storms. I know He does!! Sometimes the kids and I would go a couple days without hearing from him. The longest he was gone was just over a month when there was a bad storm in Utah and when he landed back in the Portland area a storm had hit here as well. They went straight to work again. Our daughter was just under one and actually forgot who he was. So sad! He has worked in ice storms where the rain freezes as soon as it hits his rain gear and he has to break it off to continue working. That's cold! He has pulled into towns on the Oregon coast where there is no power and no restaurants open for them to eat meals. They would buy cans of soup and throw it on their dash with the heat on high. That's how they heated their food! There have been plenty of times where I lost power home alone with the kids but we have great imaginations and always make it fun even though we miss him a ton. He was working a storm and missed Caleb's first Christmas. That was sad but again we so proud of him. We kinda like this guy!”

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Here's my two-fold purpose for this blog:

1) To help show the general public the ins and outs of such an important, yet overlooked line of work

Linemen should absolutely be considered First Responders!

2) To share with the general public what God laid on my heart as a spiritual analogy to this recent power outage

Biblical Analogy:

I guess I love analogies, and they help me focus on spiritual matters. I thought through the following after my selfish heart considered withholding power-restoring help until the next day’s forecasted windstorm passed.

Yes, if I were a line(wo)men, I would have had an internal battle about being out in the rain restoring power for others if I knew of another potential windstorm in the works.

This mindset is thankfully not reality for the real workers! I personally saw linemen working moments away from my own house. They did what needed to be done—even for people like me who didn’t necessarily deserve power restoration that quickly.

That’s just like God’s loving mercy! It is FREELY bestowed on sinful humanity—it’s FREELY offered, despite our pending “sin-storms” of which we’re guaranteed to be guilty, even moments after God extends mercy for other acts of sin we’ve done.

Sorry for the wordy sentence, but let me explain:

The Bible says the LORD’s mercies are new every morning, and His faithfulness is great. So, my personal “sin-storm” from January 1 can be covered in God’s mercy. God does not withhold His mercy, in spite of my guaranteed “sin-storms” on January 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

If you are unsure of what Bible passage to recall to your mind, or if you can only read small sections of the Bible each day, I encourage you to read this passage day after day…

“This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I hope in Him!”  Lamentations 3:21-24

This mercy is open to anyone, but is directed at those who have placed their faith in Him. For a past blog that explains how to become a child of God, here ya go...Click here, and scroll to the bottom to find out more.

May we also extend the same kind of mercy to others. Plus, may we be extra grateful in 2026 for God’s continuous mercy!

~Powering On With God's Mercies,

Sharon