Have been struck by lightning on two occasions. Both cases were just west of LHR giving a big bang but no damage. The engineers did though have to re-protect some of the rivets near the site of the strike. The strike removes the protective coating (e.g. paint!) on the heads of rivets and so this has to be reapplied.
One of these strikes was on a training trip and the poor lass doing her first 757 take-off did extremely well in maintaining her lady-like decorum!
Strikes can have differing effects. On most occasions the electrical path of the lightning just runs around the outside of the fuselage and then discharges to ground with no effect to the aircraft. For the technically minded it acts as a "Faraday's Cage". But there have been reports of ball lightning travelling down the aisles, a door being welded closed and there is the case of the BA 757 FO whom caught a stray bolt on the approach to AMS. He survived, but I believe has some medical probs with cardiac rhythm distortion caused by the strike.
Be careful out there.........