CLTP 34 DFO
Power and Protection!--Part 24
True-Life Stories of God's Help in Crisis!
(For 9 years old and up. Selected stories may be read with younger children at the adults' discretion.)
Stories courtesy of Guideposts; Where Miracles Happen by Joan Wester Anderson, and A Rustle of Angels by Marilynn and William Webber. (Christian Leadership Training Program publications are circulated free of charge on a strictly non-profit basis.)
A Question of Courage--By Robert R. Searle
About 3:00 A.M. on that cold January morning in 1974, my Field Training Officer, another policeman, and I were doing paperwork in a dingy and poorly lit bar in Oakland, California. The three of us had just captured a burglar who had broken into the bar.
I was a rookie [1] cop fresh out of the police academy, assigned to ride with Frank, a seasoned police officer, who was my Field Training Officer. Frank, like many cops on the police force, was self-assured and strong-willed and appeared to be able to handle any situation that might develop. So I looked to him closely for guidance. I really enjoyed the excitement of police work, but at times I was also afraid. Maybe that is the case with rookies in any profession, but in police work a mistake can cost a life--perhaps your own.
The bar was unheated, and sitting on the stool next to Frank as he finished the crime report, I could see puffs of my breath. The chill of the barstool penetrated my new uniform. I made a mental note: Rule #1, while working winter night shifts, wear long johns. There was so much I needed to learn.
Police work throws people together in life-and-death situations, and partners have to rely on their skills and on each other implicitly [2]. Command and authority are as important as in the army, and when there is no one to show you how, you have to act on your own. Frank was forever drilling me on the importance of self-reliance. But this left me a bit confused because, as a recently born-again Christian, I had been told to put my trust in God. I didn't know how much I should trust God and how much I should rely on my own resources. There seemed to be a bit of a conflict between his advice and my new faith, and I didn't know how to work it out yet. However, one thing I did know. With Frank, and in the department generally, it wasn't considered cool to talk about your faith in Jesus.
The "paddy wagon" had come and gone, taking the burglar to jail. Now all that remained after the drama of the capture and arrest was three tired cops with unfinished paperwork and one red-eyed bartender brewing a pot of coffee to keep us all awake.
I was still shivering as Frank finished the final page of the report. Suddenly there was the sound of screeching tires and a thundering crash of metal against metal, followed by another of splintering wood and glass. Frank lifted himself off the bar stool.
"Let's take a look," he said.
Outside, icy air hit my face. Down the street was a scene of wreckage and debris. A speeding truck had collided with a car and knocked it through the side of an old, single-story, wooden building. The building and the car had started to burn.
"Oh, God, what if someone is caught inside that car?" I said to myself as we ran towards the crash. My first instinct was to run away. I have always been terribly afraid of fire. Being trapped in flames used to be a recurring nightmare I had.
Frank and the other policeman were behind me now, attempting to call police and fire emergency units over their receiver radios as they ran. Our footsteps echoed in the silent predawn streets. I thanked God that the rear of the car, which was protruding from the building, was not yet on fire or the gas tank might explode. I had seen cars go off like bombs. The thought sent chills down my spine. Out of nowhere, a man, silhouetted against the flames, ran toward me yelling, "Hurry, hurry, a woman is pinned in the car!"
A wave of panic, almost like a sickness, passed through me. In a few more steps I reached the car. I peered through the shattered glass of the passenger window and tried the door, but the impact had jammed it shut. The woman was pinned under the dashboard and appeared unconscious. Flames were crackling, but the fire was mostly contained under the hood and hadn't spread to the car interior. I was sweating now, despite the cold. I pushed out the rest of the broken glass with my hands, ripping my gloves.
Leaning through the passenger window I grabbed the woman's arm. Frank came running up.
"Engines are on their way," he yelled. He climbed in the backseat through the rear door on the driver's side.
"Pull her up," he yelled. I tried to lift her high enough for him to reach, but she wouldn't budge and he was unable to grasp her from the rear seat. The passerby, who had alerted me, tried reaching in through the driver's window but was only able to take hold of her ankle. We struggled vainly. "Hey, the fire's spreading!" the man shouted. It was hard to hear over the crackling blaze. Frank backed out of the car.
"Get away from the car! Gas is spilling all over!" he yelled. I was trained to follow orders, but I hesitated. The heat was intense.
"Back out! Get away from the car!" Frank yelled again.
I looked across the front seat through the smoke; the passerby was gone. Our rescue attempt had failed. I had to accept the fact. I retreated back with the others.
Safely away, I could see the flames spreading over the top of the car and up through the old building. Now the interior of the car was filling with smoke. A cold wind blew over us, wafting the oily fumes. All I could think of was the poor woman trapped in the flames. It was like my nightmare. Trapped! Burning!
"We did all we could. But she's done for," Frank said.
My heart was beating wildly. "God, I can't do a thing. Can't You save her?" I pleaded.
Then into my mind flashed a thought from Matthew 18:14: "I wish that none perish."
"God. You aren't telling me to get back in that car, are You? Three of us just failed in our attempt to free her." My heart felt like it had stopped beating. I was terrified because I knew I had to give it another try.
"Jesus, You promised to be my strength in my weakness, and You know that I'm terrified of fire, so You're going to have to be the One Who does it," I prayed.
Taking a deep breath, I started forward. My legs propelled me toward the burning car. Just one more attempt. The fire prevented entry now on the driver's side of the car. I ran around to the other side. "God, help me get this rear door open," I prayed. I sensed His nearness. My fear was still with me--but somehow it was held in check.
Praise God! The door moved enough so I could slide sideways into the backseat. Once inside, I couldn't see because of the thick smoke and my smarting [3] eyes.
"Lord, show me! Help us get out of here!" I said out loud.
I had to move fast before the gas tank burst. Leaning over the front seat, I groped for the woman. The smoke cleared for one moment and I saw that the ends of her hair were starting to burn. I was able to reach her head and bat the fire out with my gloved hands. Larger flames starting appearing through the dashboard. I was terribly off balance, stretched way over the front seat ... impossible to reach her. My feet were slipping on broken glass lying on the floor; my hands just touched her. Not knowing how I was going to get leverage to lift her, I pleaded loudly for God's help. Bent over and stretched out, I got my hand barely under her. But when I lifted, she was much lighter than I imagined. It was as if her body was raised effortlessly.
Then I had her secure in my arms. Smoke swirled around as I tried to edge out, but we couldn't both get through the small gap in the door. I kicked with my foot but it wouldn't open any more. So I pushed her feet out through the opening. Outside the passerby ran up and grabbed her legs; he tugged and she bounced out.
Then, twisting and pushing, I slipped beneath the metal jaws of the door. I ran. Before I was twenty feet away, the car was completely engulfed in flames.
I ran over to the small circle of onlookers, panting, my eyes watering from the smoke. We stood in silence for a moment.
"Bob, I wanted to help you, but I've been afraid of fire all my life," Frank whispered, resting his hand on my shoulder.
"So have I," I replied, looking up and inhaling a breath of fresh air.
"There's no way ... I thought, humanly speaking, there was just no possible way we could get her out," he said.
"There wasn't," I said.
We looked at each other for a moment--two cops, a seasoned veteran and a green rookie--and we both understood how I was able to do the impossible.
* * *
They Shall Bear Thee Up in Their Hands--By Marilynn and William Webber
Shirley Halliday opened her Bible. It was a regular part of her daily routine, and this day she especially felt that she needed a word from God. Her work as a nurse was rewarding but tiring, and at times like this she missed her husband the most. He had died only three months ago.
Tonight the house was quiet. Her 13-year-old daughter, Janie, was on vacation with her oldest brother, his wife, and their two children. Shirley read Psalm 91 in her worn King James Bible. She read verses eleven and twelve, "For He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."
Shirley stopped reading and burst into tears, sobbing almost uncontrollably. She felt that Janie was in danger but did not know how or where--only that her daughter was in a situation in which she might die.
Shirley began pleading with the Lord. "I know You never give us more than we can bear," she prayed, "but I know I couldn't bear losing my daughter so soon after my husband's death. I place Janie in Your care."
Shirley prayed: "I entrust all who are dear to me to Thy never failing care and love, in this life and the life to come, for You know better things than I do for them. O God, I truly place my daughter Janie in Your hands." She prayed with all the passion of a mother who knows that her daughter's life is in the balance. Then she claimed Psalm 34:4: "I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."
Shirley felt the burden lifted from her, then a feeling of peace swept over her. She knew that the Lord had heard her pleas and answered her prayers.
Shirley continued to read Psalm 91. A few verses later she read, "He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him." It came as a complete confirmation to her. The peace had come even before she had read the promise of God's answer. Now she praised God with her whole heart.
Miles away, Shirley's daughter, Janie, was turning to photograph the sights of the Grand Canyon. In the area of the Petrified Forest, anxious for a better picture, she left the family group, climbed over a barrier, and went to the edge of a cliff. The ground was covered with what looked like black ashes. Janie slipped and went over the edge. She plummeted down, frantically reaching for something--anything--to hold onto. There was nothing. The walls of the canyon were black and seemed bottomless. It seemed to the teenager that she would be seriously hurt.
Then she felt a presence. Janie stopped falling, suddenly coming to a complete stop as though she had been caught. Janie put her hand out and felt the slippery wall of the canyon. She tried to turn her body, but all that happened was that she felt herself dropping some more. Carefully trying to edge her way up, she would only slide farther down. It seemed impossible. There was no way she could climb back up, and she was in danger of falling the rest of the way to the bottom.
Janie felt enveloped with the presence. Suddenly she found herself back at the top. She knew that she had not climbed back up on her own. That would have been impossible. She could only explain that an angel had stopped her fall by catching her in his strong arms. She had been lifted to the top on the wings of angels.
Later, not wanting to frighten her mother, Janie did not mention her close call when she phoned home that night. "We're having a wonderful time, and we're all okay," she reported.
"I know you will be safe," her mother replied, "I've placed you in the hands of the Lord."
At that time neither mother nor daughter told of the experience each had had a short time earlier.
When the family returned home, they were recounting the adventures of their trip. Passing one picture to her mother, Janie recounted her close brush with death and the mysterious rescue.
"When did it happen?" the mother asked.
"The day we visited the Grand Canyon. You know I called home later that night."
"But exactly when did it happen that day?" Shirley persisted.
The vacationers remembered the time of the accident. It was the exact time that Shirley had made her fervent pleas to God.
Shirley will always remember that day. "It was no coincidence," she stated with assurance. "It was the Holy Spirit Who let me know that Janie's life was in danger. When I cried out to God in prayer, He sent His angels to rescue Janie."
* * *
Angels in Winter--By Marilynn and William Webber
In January of 1990, 14-year-old Wynter Rowe couldn't resist hitching a ride with her mother, Linda, who was going to pick up some ordered supplies 30 miles away at a mall. Linda warned Wynter that it would have to be a quick in-and-out stop at the mall because of the dangerous weather moving into their part of Oregon.
When they left the mall at 5:30, snow clouds had already darkened the sky prematurely. Freezing rain and snow were forecast, and the radio warned that there was already "black ice"--which was impossible to see--on the roads.
Linda held the car well within the speed limit on Interstate 5. "The pavement seems pretty dry," she said. "Hopefully, we'll get past Blackwell Hill before the freeze and snowfall." Blackwell Hill was known for being treacherous when icy.
Mother and daughter began singing to pass the time: "You've got to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul and all your mind, and love mankind, as you would yourself ..."
They were just yards from Blackwell Hill, when, as Wynter says, "Suddenly it felt as if I no longer had a seat under me. I saw Mom gasp in surprise as the car fishtailed [4] wildly to the left. She let up on the accelerator and lightly tapped the brakes, then released them and tried tapping them again. The wheels couldn't get a hold, and the rear end of the car skewed in the opposite direction."
"We're losing it," Linda cried. "Hold on. Oh, God help us!"
Now out of control, the car performed two perfect circles before sliding--backward--into the right-hand lane and up the hill.
Wynter continues: "I began to black out but at the last moment looked up--directly into the eyes of an angel sitting overhead. I turned and looked at Mom, who was trying desperately to bring the car under control--and I saw another angel covering her hand with his.
"I saw Mom's lips moving in silent prayer--and I prayed, too." By this time the car was shooting across the lanes of traffic, barely missing one vehicle, only to be thrown into the path of another--yet missing that one too. The car nosed over the right-hand embankment, teetered there for a moment, then double-looped back across the highway into the left-hand lane.
Wynter then saw her mother's eyes widen in terror, and she looked in the same direction. "To my horror," she says, "I saw the dividing guardrail just a few feet in front of our speeding car. I looked imploringly at the angel above me, and felt him silently prompting me to call out--which I did--'Jesus! Please help us!'"
She heard her mother say, "We're going through!" Then she scrunched her eyes shut for the moment of impact.
But the impact never came. "I was aware of a forever silence. There was no grinding, crashing, or ripping. No shattered glass driving into me. And no pain! I wondered if I was in Heaven.
"Confused, I opened one eye and found that we were parked safely off the road by the guardrail. The engine was quiet, but there seemed no damage to the car."
After the police came, and the Rowes were calm, the car was turned around. Despite the snow that had started to fall, the rest of the drive back home was made in safety. Once they were home and soothed by mugs of hot chocolate, the two were finally calm enough to compare notes.
"You know," Linda told Wynter, "as we headed for the guardrail, all I could do was hold on to the steering wheel. Somehow I knew that's what God wanted me to do. In the last split second before we hit, I asked God to take me and spare you. I didn't want you to suffer. I'd done all I could and felt that the end was at hand. Then I heard you cry out your simple prayer.
"When you did, God showed me six gigantic angels, with their hands interlocked, blocking the guardrail. They diverted our car."
She had also experienced the same two angels inside the car that Wynter had seen. With awe, Linda explained, "The angel next to me parked the car, turned it off, and set the brake, while the other shielded Wynter."
To this day, neither has forgotten a moment of their ride--nor have they forgotten the six angels, all in a row.
* * *
A Mighty Fortress--By Robert J. "Mutt" Osborne
When I was an aerial gunner on a B-17 bomber flying out of England in 1943, we seldom came back from a raid over Germany or Europe without extensive damage to our Flying Fortress caused by German fighters or anti-aircraft fire. That deadly hail of machine gun bullets and shrapnel [6] caused numerous casualties among crew members too. I remember we talked a lot about defensive armor, and wished we had some. Later on flak jackets [7] were issued and did save some lives. But the most effective shield that ever surrounded me had nothing to do with bulletproof jackets. It was manufactured a long way from those furious combats in the sky. But without it I wouldn't be here today.
Let me tell you a little about myself. I was born in the low country of South Carolina, grew up on the hill of Puddin Swamp in the Turbeville community. Our family had a two-horse farm. But we lost it in the Great Depression when just about everybody went broke. My daddy had to fall back on sharecropping [8], and things were awfully tight. Nobody had any money; everything was bartered [9], and there wasn't much to barter. We boys had to fish and hunt to keep eating. I remember being given the old shotgun and one shell--all we could afford--and told to come back with one squirrel or else face big trouble. When we went rabbit hunting we didn't take a gun at all, just a pocketful of those heavy square nuts that hold a wheel on the axle of a wagon. We threw those, and we got so we didn't miss very often.
My daddy wasn't much for religion, but my mother was. Everyone called her Miss Martha, and she used to say she was going to teach us young 'uns right from wrong. We went barefoot all week, and often shirtless too, but Miss Martha would round up all the neighborhood kids on Sunday and see that we wore shoes and went to Sunday School in the old Methodist church down at Turbeville. When the war came, she got all the church mothers who had boys in the service to meet every day to pray for our safety.
Because I weighed only about 130 pounds my nickname was Mutt, after the smaller character in the famous comic strip Mutt and Jeff. When I graduated from aerial gunnery school, my size made me a natural candidate for ball-turret gunner10. The ball-turret, on the underside of a Fortress plane, was so small that the gunner couldn't even wear a parachute. You were down there with two .50-caliber machine guns and nothing else.
Some air crews were fortunate. I can't say that ours was. On our very first mission we were shot up so badly that we crash landed on the English coast. That was the end of our Fortress named Little Chuck. We got another named The Last Chance, and it almost was. On one mission, after we were hit hard, the bombardier [11] and navigator decided to bail out. The bombardier pulled his ripcord too soon. The billowing silk streamed through the escape hatch and then pinned him against the opening so he couldn't move. He was just about being flogged to death. The wildly flapping chute came and tangled itself around my guns; I couldn't see or do anything. I had to go up into the plane, cut the bombardier out of his harness and pull him back aboard. I got a nasty slash across my hand from my own knife, but we somehow got back to England.
Early in November we were ordered to bomb Gelsenkirchen, a German industrial center in the Ruhr. It was my 20th mission and it would be tough. I wasn't flying with my regular crew; I was a substitute gunner on another airplane.
We made it to our target and dropped our bombs, but then it seemed to me that the German fighters came in like a swarm of bees. I could feel our plane shudder from multiple hits, and when I swung my turret around to look at the engines, I saw that two of them were out. That meant that we would be losing altitude and dropping behind the formation, a sitting duck for more fighter attacks.
I didn't hear any order to bail out (actually our communications system was destroyed), but looking down I saw parachutes begin to blossom under our plane. I counted eight of them. There were 10 of us in the crew. German fighters were still coming in, but I figured if everyone was leaving I had better leave too. So I crawled up into the body of the Fortress and clipped on my chute, which I always kept right beside the turret.
The bomb-bay doors were still open, and I was about to jump when I happened to look ahead and saw the pilot slumped over in the space between his seat and the copilot's. It seemed to me that he moved a little bit, which meant that he wasn't dead. For a moment I hesitated, torn between the desire to jump and save myself, and reluctance to leave a wounded man to what would be certain death. I guess my mother's lessons about right and wrong had been hammered in more firmly than I knew. I was frightened almost out of my senses, but I found myself walking along the catwalk above the bomb bay until I came to the pilot. He had been hit in the head either by flak or by machine-gun bullets and was barely conscious. The copilot had left the plane on automatic pilot; we were still flying on only two engines.
I knelt beside the wounded pilot, scared stiff and wondering what to do. I looked through the windshield to see if the formation was leaving us (it was), and as I did I saw something totally incredible. Reflected in the glass was a picture--a vivid picture--of a group of women gathered around a large diningroom table, praying. I knew who they were, because in almost every letter my mother told me she had her friends praying for us. Even stranger, standing behind those women were their sons in uniform. I knew them too, and I also knew that some of them were dead, killed in action.
As I stared in amazement, the picture faded, but I heard--or seemed to hear--a commanding voice that spoke three words: "Take it back!" I knew it could not be the pilot, who was mumbling incoherently. I knew too that I was being ordered to take charge of our crippled airplane and fly it back to England.
But how could I? On practice missions I sometimes had been allowed to sit in the copilot's seat and "fly" the aircraft. But this "stick time" was insignificant. I had never attempted to land or take off in a four-engined bomber, much less one with two engines out. But the voice came again, clear and authoritative: "Take it back."
Now I seemed to be aware of a figure standing behind me. I thought for a moment the tail gunner had left his position and come forward. But that was impossible because I had seen eight chutes. There could only be two of us left in the plane: the pilot and myself. But again the voice spoke, and this time it gave me the compass heading for England. I think it was 322 degrees.
My reaction to all this, to the picture of the praying women, to the resonant voice, to the inexplicable presence of a third man, was a kind of total acceptance. My rational mind couldn't believe any of it, but I accepted it. I felt as if a strong, wise commander was giving me orders. It was my job to obey them, and I felt the terrible sense of panic and helplessness begin to subside.
I crawled into the copilot's seat, took the Fortress off automatic pilot, and swung it around to the heading I had been given. I still felt the presence of the third man behind me, but I didn't look around. The formation had gone ahead without us. Off to the left at about 11 o'clock I saw a squadron of German fighters queuing up to let us have it. We were helpless and they knew it.
Then suddenly, right behind us, was a towering cumulus [12] cloud. By rights that cloud wasn't supposed to be there; it wasn't on our weather charts. But there it was, and we ducked into it like a hunted deer. Visibility dropped to zero. No fighters could find us in such cover. We flew along steadily, our two good engines pulling us, and when we finally came out of the clouds at about 10,000 feet, we were over the North Sea, and the coastline of England lay ahead of us. A tremendous surge of relief surged through me, and I glanced over my shoulder. Was that figure still standing behind me?
No one was there.
But we still weren't home. When we crossed the coast I began looking for a place to try to land. I had no idea how to find our own base, but finally I saw a runway with some transports on it. When I tried to talk to the tower, I didn't know the proper call signs to identify myself, and they kept telling me not to land. The Germans had been known to load a captured Fortress with explosives and send it over England, hoping that when it came down it would blow up something. The radio operators in the tower were women, and I couldn't understand their British accents, just one emphatic word, "No! No! No!" I guess they couldn't comprehend my Carolina country talk very well either, but I hoped they would figure it was something no German pilot could possibly imitate. In any case, I had to land, because I was running out of fuel; red lights were showing on all the gauges. I told the tower I would circle once and then I was coming in. I asked them to have the crash wagon and the ambulances ready. Then I swung my big crippled bird in a wide circle and headed for the runway.
I was flying on only two engines, and the bomb-bay doors were creating a lot of drag, so I was moving at only 80 or 90 miles per hour. I didn't put the wheels down because I wasn't sure how to do it, and anyway I figured it might be safer with the wheels up. So I just eased her in, holding the nose up and letting the tail kind of sag. The tail of the plane hit first, and then we skidded along on the belly of the plane, smooth as glass, almost to the end of the runway, where we just slowed down and stopped.
I got out of my window, went around and pulled the pilot out of his window. I put him on my shoulders, walked to the edge of the wing and jumped off; it wasn't very far to the ground. I was a little afraid of fire, but I knew we had almost no gas left, so I wasn't too worried. I dragged the pilot about 50 feet and fell down beside him just as an ambulance came screeching up. They wanted to put me on a stretcher, but I told them to take the pilot first. "He's wounded," I said. "I'm not." By now they were spraying the airplane with foam for fire prevention. Someone said to me, "Are there any more men on board?" I said, "I don't think you'll find any." Then a wave of blackness descended and I passed out.
When I woke up in the hospital, they fed me some broth and said I was suffering from total exhaustion. I couldn't quarrel with that. The pilot was badly hurt; he lingered for a few days and then died.
When I tried to tell our intelligence officers about the third man who had been on the plane, they smiled indulgently and said something about "understandable hallucinations [13]."
I can understand their doubts, but I have no doubts of my own. I know it was Jesus Who came to me when I was in terrible danger and told me what to do and helped me to do it. I believe too that prayer put an invisible shield around me that day in the flaming skies over Nazi Germany. It can guard you too, if someone will just pray for you as fervently as that little group of women prayed for me, so many years ago, in a quiet rural community, on the hill of Puddin Swamp.
* * *
The Safety Inspector--By Joan Wester Anderson
Jean Hannan Ondracek of Omaha had gone to a spa in the Ozarks with her sister Pat and two girlfriends--young adults enjoying a weekend of fun. Because Jean was the only one who knew how to swim, she decided one Saturday morning to venture into the lake. Her companions planned to stay on shore. "There were other people in the area," Jean remembers, "but no one very close to our spot on the shore. There were no lifeguards patrolling this section of beach. As far as I knew, I was the only swimmer in the lake."
The sun was warm. The water refreshing, and time--and distance--passed more quickly than Jean had anticipated. At a point much farther from shore than she had thought--and where the lake was quite deep--Jean suddenly ran out of breath. Shocked, she realized that she did not have enough energy to get herself back to shore. She called and waved frantically, but she could hardly make out the tiny figures on the sand. And no one was looking her way. As her fear increased, Jean realized that she could drown.
"God, help me! Help me!" she prayed aloud.
Suddenly she saw something bobbing in the water to her left. A boat! It looked like an old abandoned canoe. If she could get to it, perhaps she could row it back. ... With the last of her energy, Jean paddled over to the boat, but her heart sank when she saw it. It was old, all right, without oars, and apparently chained or anchored in some way to something at the bottom of the lake. She could hold for a moment, steady herself and catch her breath, and that was surely a blessing. But the respite [14] was at best temporary.
How long could she hold on before Pat and the others noticed her absence? Or would they simply assume she had come ashore on another stretch of beach, and not put out an alarm for her? What would happen when the sun's rays began to burn her, or she became thirsty, or her arms, clutching to the slippery sides became tired? What if the old boat splintered under her weight? Jean started to cry. "Help!" she called again. "Somebody, help!"
To her right, Jean suddenly heard splashing. She turned to see a man a few years older than her gliding easily through the waves, then treading water in front of her. "Hi," he greeted her calmly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be passing by. "Having trouble?"
"I--I'm out of breath and can't get back," she answered, relief flooding her. "Where did you come from? I didn't see anyone swimming--and I was certainly looking for help!"
The young man shrugged casually. "Oh, I'm a safety inspector, and one of my jobs is saving lives in water, if I have to. Do you think you can swim back?"
"Oh, no." Jean shook her head. "I'm exhausted."
"Come on, you can do it!" The young inspector smiled confidently. "I'll swim beside you the whole way, until you reach shore. If you get in any trouble, I'll hold you up."
"Well, OK," Jean replied. He seemed so confident. Maybe she could do it, especially if he was there to catch her if she faltered.
Jean somehow summoned the energy to swim the entire distance. The safety inspector didn't say much, but true to his word, he matched his strokes to hers and watched her carefully.
In a final burst of power, Jean stumbled triumphantly onto the beach's sandy shore. Pat and the others, still lounging on their blankets, looked at her as she splashed through the shallows. "What happened to you?" Pat called. "You've been gone such a long time."
"I almost drowned," Jean panted, dragging herself toward them. "If it wasn't for the lifeguard. ..."
"What lifeguard?" Pat was looking past Jean.
"The guard, the safety inspector who swam back with me." Jean turned around to point to him.
But there was no young man on the shore, no one swimming away in the lake, no one walking on the shoreline in either direction. Nor had Jean's friends seen anyone accompanying her.
Jean never saw her rescuer again, but she did discover that the resort didn't have any lifeguards or "safety inspectors" on the payroll. Apparently he was a guard of a different kind!
* * *
The Woman Who Wasn't Afraid--By Louise Degrafinried
Every time I heard a noise outside--a snap of twigs, a rustle of leaves--I found myself at the kitchen window, peering out into the dark, wet February night. Maybe it was one of them, making the noise.
"Do you really think they're nearby?" I said once more to my husband, Nathon.
"Well, that's what the television says," he replied. Three days earlier five men had escaped from the Fort Pillow State Prison, just 40 miles north of us. The men were armed and desperate. They were violent criminals. They didn't have much to lose, either; some were already serving life sentences. Then one was caught. And the police had figured the rest of them were hiding out somewhere in the rural bottomland [15] between Mason and Braden in southwest Tennessee.
Mason is five miles away, Braden a little nearer. But the bottomlands are all around us. Our nearest neighbor lives a good piece away--certainly out of hollering distance.
The leaves rustled again. No, it was just the cold winter wind, maybe a possum or two.
I didn't like the idea at all--people hanging around outside my house. "Nathon, please pull down that shade in the bathroom," I said. We hadn't done that for as long as I could remember.
It wasn't that I didn't feel safe. I always feel safe in our house, because our house is God's house too. Nathon and I raised four children in it with no troubles. And I just knew that was because our house is a house of prayer.
I learned about God and about praying when I was growing up with my Grandpa Dempsey. We lived with him after my father died when I was just five years old. More than any other person I have ever known, Grandpa Dempsey depended on God. Every night at nine o'clock, he would get the whole family together in a circle for prayer. "If you trust in God, then He will take care of you," I remember him saying to us. "Look at me. I raised eighteen children and I never paid no fine 'cause any of them got into trouble." Oh, Grandpa believed all right. He taught me to believe too--strong.
I was glad to see the sun the next morning. It had been a cold night. When I looked out the kitchen window, there was still frost on the ground.
"Nathon, please put Cat outside while I'm cooking. How many eggs do you want?" And I just kept on talking. I'm always the one talking in this family. Every once in a while, Nathon said, "Uh-huh."
We just finished eating when the phone rang. It was my friend Renzie Fields. She wanted to know if we had heard about the escaped cons. We talked about it for a few minutes. Once, I put my hand over the receiver. "Nathon, I hear Cat crying. Better let him back in."
I had gone back to talking with Renzie when I heard Nathon shout, "Honey, open the door!"
That startled me. Nathon didn't ever raise his voice unless there was an awful good reason. I just couldn't imagine what would make Nathon holler like that, unless ...
"Honey, open the door!" he hollered.
"Renzie," I said softly, "call the police." And quickly I hung up. Even as I put the receiver down, I wondered if Renzie would know what in the world I meant.
I hurried across the kitchen and flung the door open as fast as I could. There in front of me stood a tall black man. His clothes were covered with mud. He had a dirty sock tied around his neck. And he had a shotgun jabbed into Nathon's side.
"Don't make me shoot you, old man," he growled. He motioned Nathon into the house, and then quickly followed him through the door. Nathon stumbled over the garbage can, but I grabbed his arm, and then we both stood back in a corner, watching the man closely. His eyes darted about, looking all over our small house. "Are you expecting company today?" he demanded.
"No," I said, "nobody's coming here."
"Good. Where's the telephone?" I pointed to it. He reached over, snatched the receiver off the hook and dropped it on the chair. Then he turned and began looking about the house again like he was trying to find a place to hide.
Where are the others? I wondered. Are they lurking out of sight waiting?
"I was outside your house all night. I could hear you folks talking about me," the man said. "Old man, that truck of yours run? I'm gonna want you to give me a ride." Then he turned around towards us. "Well?"
"All right, then, I'll give you a ride," Nathon said. "But the old truck sometimes doesn't crank. I'll have to go outside and see if it will start."
The man was quiet for a moment. There was no change in his steely-eyed gaze. "Okay, go ahead. But don't try anything funny. Don't make me shoot you. Or her!" He waved his gun at me. Nathon went outside slowly.
Armed, desperate, criminals. And now I was looking down the barrel of a shotgun held by one of these men.
"Young man," I said, and I took a few steps toward him, "I am ... "
"Get back!" he barked, pointing the shotgun boldly. "I already told you, don't make me do nothing."
You'd think by this time I would have been scared out of my wits, but I wasn't. In fact, I was a little mad. That young man had barged into our house and he had no right to do it. I wasn't going to let him harm us either. Not in this house, anyway, because this was God's house. And God wasn't going to let anything happen to us in it.
"Young man," I said again, this time not moving. "I'm a Christian lady. We don't have any violence in this house. This is God's house. Put that gun down."
There was silence. He held the gun still, pointed right at me.
"I said put that gun down!" Then slowly he turned and leaned the gun against the couch. And he slumped on the couch himself.
"Lady, I am so hungry," he said. "I haven't eaten in three days."
"Then I will fix you some breakfast," I said. The fixings were still on the counter from when Nathon and I had eaten. I commenced to crack some eggs in a bowl.
"What's your name, young man?"
"Riley," he said. I found out he was 26 years old. He came from Texas. And he was serving 25 years for murder. "But I didn't do it," he said.
I put down a plate of eggs, bacon and toast on the table in front of him, along with a half-gallon jug of milk. "All right," I said, "say something."
Riley just looked at me funny. I guessed they didn't say grace in prison. But in Nathon's and my house, we said it. And we always said it with a Bible verse. But, I thought, maybe Riley doesn't know a Bible verse. Right then I thought of one for him, the shortest verse in the Bible.
"While you're here with us," I said, "say, 'Jesus wept.'"
Riley lowered his head. "Jesus wept," he mumbled.
I patted his leg, and I kept my hand there as I bowed my head and finished blessing the food for him. "Young man," I said, "enjoy your breakfast. And when you're done, I'll fix up a solution to help your throat."
Riley looked at me real surprised. I knew he was wondering how I knew there was something wrong with his throat. But the moment he came in I had seen that sock tied around his neck. There's an old remedy my grandma taught me to take away a sore throat on a cold night.
"You sound like my grandmother," Riley said, taking a swallow of milk.
"Where's your grandmother?" I asked.
"She's dead," he replied.
"She loved you though, didn't she?" Riley looked at me and I thought I saw him nod. "Well, I love you, and I'm not dead. Jesus loves you too. He died for us all. That's the way I know He loves you."
Riley didn't say anything to that, but I just kept on giving him the Bible. And he just kept on eating. He hardly even noticed Nathon come back in, then go out and head down the front driveway.
"Young man, you'd like to give yourself up, wouldn't you?"
He really looked scared when I said that. "Oh, lady," he said, "they'd kill me. They'd kill me in a minute."
"No," I said firmly, "they won't kill you. There won't be any violence in this house, by anyone."
Riley paused a minute. Then slowly, he nodded his head. "Okay. But tell just one to come. Just one."
"All right," I said. I stood up to reach the phone. Just then I saw them through the front window. There were four police cars in our driveway. Nathon was talking to a policeman. Riley saw me staring, and he jumped out of his chair and looked out the window too.
"Oh, lady, they're gonna kill me." His voice quivered. He looked back at his shotgun by the couch.
"Young man, you come and sit back down," I said. "They aren't going to kill you. Not if I do the talking."
The front door swung open and Nathon came in. "Honey, the police said for you and me to come out."
"All right," I said to Nathon. "I'll go out. But please stay here and sit next to the young man." I turned to Riley. "Don't you worry. Nobody's going to hurt you."
I closed my eyes a second and prayed hard to the Lord. Then I stepped out the front door. The police came running from all directions. "Hold it right there!" I shouted to them. "Yes, that young man is in my house. But he's not violent now. He's not even sitting near that gun."
"Tell him to come out of the house with his hands behind his head," one of the police told me.
"All right," I said, "but you folks just stand back." I called into the house. "Nathon, tell him to come out with his hands behind his head. And you come out right beside him."
So Nathon and Riley came down the steps together, and when they reached the bottom, the police put handcuffs on Riley. They went into the house to get the shotgun.
The police took Riley back to prison. I don't know what's happened to him since, but I'm praying for him. And I found out that Renzie Fields did understand what I was saying on the telephone. She found the sheriff that morning having coffee at the local truck stop.
Things are pretty much back to normal now, except that I've gotten a little more attention than an old countrywoman should expect. But I just tell everyone the same thing about not being scared of Riley. It's the truth of what happened. It was the Lord's doing that day. He takes care of you, just like He says. I know, because He's always been right there with me. And He still is.
* * *
Discussion Questions
Following are a number of questions which can be applied to each of the stories in this magazine. After reading each story, you can choose several of these questions for discussion. You do not necessarily need to ask or discuss every question after reading every story, but please choose those which apply and are helpful.
1. Is there anything that could have been done to avoid the difficult situation the people in this story found themselves in?
2. The people in the story responded in one way to what happened to them.--What are some other ways that people might react if the same thing happened to them?
3. Does this story show you anything about the benefits of the training, education and instruction you have received? Please discuss.
4. How might you have reacted if this had happened to you? How do you think you should react in similar situations? What would you pray and ask God to do?
5. Did you feel that the people in these stories could have been more of a witness? If so, how?
6. What lessons could you learn from a situation like this?
7. Why do you think God allowed this situation for these people?
8. Is there anything in these stories that you don't understand?
9. Did the Lord do a miracle in this story? If so, how did He use the miracle in the lives of the people in the story? Did it bring a change in their lives?
10. What specific answers to prayer are there in this story?
11. Does this story encourage your faith that God will help you in difficult, dangerous or seemingly impossible situations?
12. Have you ever experienced the Lord doing a miracle to save your life or someone else's? If so, what was it? Did it change your outlook on life or your relationship with the Lord or others?
* * *
Glossary for Young Readers
(The meaning given is for the use of the word in the story and does not cover every meaning of the word.)
1 rookie: untrained or inexperienced recruit
2 implicitly: without question
3 smarting: feeling stinging pain
4 fishtailed: The rear end of a forward-moving vehicle swerving from side to side out of control
5 terse: brief and to the point [Not in text.]
6 shrapnel: metal fragments from a high-explosive shell
7 flak jacket: a bulletproof jacket or vest
8 sharecropping: working as a sharecropper, a tenant farmer who gives a share of the crops raised to the landlord to pay for the rent
9 bartered: traded goods or services without the exchange of money
10 ball-turret gunner: a person who operates the guns of a combat aircraft, and is in the turret, a dome-like enclosure extending from the main body of the aircraft containing mounted guns
11 bombardier: member of a combat aircraft crew who operates the bombsight and drops the bombs
12 cumulus: a dense, white, fluffy, flat-based cloud with a multiple rounded top and a well-defined outline
13 hallucinations: seeing things that aren't really there
14 respite: a short rest or relief
15 bottomland: low-lying land adjacent to a river