Turn off the gas before there is an explosion!

I stood outside the school building, waiting for the bell that would send forth dozens of elementary children in joyous glee for the end of another school day. While I waited, I saw a friend and my co-leader in Girl Scouts. As we spoke, another mom joined in our conversation.
Behind me, I heard a voice say "Go and turn off the gas before there is an explosion!"
It was urgent, yet so...sweet. I turned, but saw no one. I returned to my friends, who were speaking as if they had heard nothing. Again the voice spoke, "Go and turn off the gas before there is an explosion!" The voice was more urgent. My friends were still speaking, oblivious to the one speaking to me.
I felt confused. A bus sat close by, waiting to take the soon-to-be gleeful children to their homes. I thought, 'I'll go tell the bus driver to turn off the engine...' but before I finished thinking it through, someone touched my elbow, and I turned to face the one speaking to me. This time he said "Wake-up! Go turn off the gas before there is an explosion!"
I sat straight up in bed! I took a long, deep breath, partly due to the shock of the moment, partly because I noticed that I did not smell anything. But he had spoken with such urgency, and I sensed there was no time to waste. I had to obey.
I got up and made my way down the hall. My children, ages 4 & 6, were asleep, each in his/her own room. All was quiet. The three of us lived in a small house in the country. Our source of gas was propane. I did not smell gas in the hallway either; however, when I rounded the corner to the kitchen, I not only smelled the propane, but it was like a cloud quickly filling the air. This was a very dangerous situation!!
The pilot light on one side of my stove was out while the other pilot light on the stove and the light for my double wall oven continued to burn. The water heater was less than ten feet away, sharing the wall of my son's room. It was already miraculous that there had not been an explosion! I opened a window and turned on a light and ceiling fan. (Later I was informed that could have created enough of a spark to ignite an explosion that would have engulfed our entire house in one instant - but God was with us!) I tried to turn the pilot light off, but it seemed broken. My landlord lived next door, but was in Iowa visiting his parents with his new fiance'. Time was critical. So I picked up the phone at three o'clock in the morining and called a friend who talked me through an alternative way to turn off the gas to the entire stove, and once that was done, he asked me what woke me. You see, the problem with gas, especially when you are sleeping, is that it usually just puts you to sleep deeper and deeper until death. For this reason, gas is treated with an odor to warn you of its presence, but in the midst of sleep, people have perished, never waking up. In our case, there would have been an explosion before anyone had the opportunity to smell any gas.
Then I realized the miracle that had taken place! I took a moment to remember the one in my dream who spoke to me with such sweet urgency. I had seen an angel! He was like light! I had seen a trace of the reflection of the glory of God! A Heavenly Father who cared enough to send a messenger to spare our lives!
This was many years ago. Next year, my son will join my daughter as a high-schooler. Though I believe my children were at an age of innocence at the time of the incident, and would have gone to be with the Lord had we perished, neither had asked Jesus to be Savior and Lord of their lives - that would happen about a year and a half later. So why did He save us when some perish in similar circumstances? I cannot answer that. I can only stand in awe and give glory to the One who created us, and for whatever reason, had a purpose for our lives that had not yet been fulfilled.
I have been asked why it never occurred to me to grab my children and get them out of the house. All I can say is that I had been given heavenly instructions - my job was to obey and walk in faith. I didn't have time to think really, just respond.
I share this with you who read because I know there are people who don't believe that God is real, or that if He is, that He loves them or can forgive them. I want to say that if God can love me, He can love anybody. I'm not going to tell you all the myriads of ways I have screwed-up. What I will tell you, is that every time, God has wooed me back to Him. He wants to woo you to Himself too. You can deny the truth all you want, but it still remains the truth. The God Who is big enough and strong enough to create the Universe and conquer death, is gentle enough to hold you in His arms. If you ask Him to show Himself to you, He will. It probably wont be some miracle, like sending an angel to speak to you, (though He can), but God makes Himself evident in so many ways if you are just willing to seek Him honestly. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by trying.

Saying Goodbye

I finished filling a notebook this week, and as I leafed through it, I came across a piece of prose I wrote last September after the death of a dear friend.

I watched you
as time and illness weakened your body
and death sought you -
creeping up slowly -
taking a piece of you at a time.

You became so frail in body
but your spirit shone like a star;
I felt your love and companionship
oh how I hope you felt mine
as I helplessly stood by

both dreading the day you would leave me
and anticipating your freedom from your plight.

Then the last day came
and all I wanted to do was turn back the clock
so I could have you with me like it was when you were well.

All I could do was make you as comfortable as possible
and stroke your head gently
while I sang softly to you
and told you how much I love you.
I don't know if you understood my words then,
but I know you understood my heart;
You reached out to me
until the final moments when death took you
and you couldn't do anything but go with it.

The finality of the moment of death is like a boulder
falling on top - crushing its victims;
You want to run away but there is no where to go.

It seems so cruel that as death consumes someone we love
that the world goes on about its business without a care.

It is the same for everyone.

For those who experience the loss
it is an empty hole - a pit in the heart
where grief and sorrow blaze for a time -
till the sweetness of memory
is not so painful as it is sweet
even though the loss is never gone.

Those of us who wait upon the Lord
know there will be a day when those who believe will rise again
and there is hope!

But when someone dies without this hope
the pain and loss are incomprehensible.
The loss of death is final.

It makes one examine life
and what is important in the time left as an inhabitant of earth
before our Heavenly Father calls us Home;
Contemplating if someone's life will be made better
because I was a part of it;
Will I show someone the way to eternal life
or waste it on my own worldly agendas?

Guilt for not having done more increases sorrow.
Guilt for avoiding watching death take away the ones we love,
and then when theyre gone,
wishing we'd have spent more time with them;
Wishing for just one more day, or hour
to hold them and tell them we love them.

But those moments are gone.
And we must go on without them in our lives.

Sometimes it feels like it is not enough for the memory of you
to live in my heart or my dreams at night.
I wake up to the realization that you are gone.
(I had hoped many times to wake up and find that your illness was but a bad dream).

I hope that when my life on earth is over,
that I will have impacted someone as profoundly
as your life and unconditional love have impacted me.
************(end prose)

Just a year before I wrote this, I walked through the valley of the shadow of death.
But God delivered me and I am becoming as if I had never been ill
but I am ever aware of how precious life is, how suddenly it can be taken away,  and I have really thought about what is important. Though this prose seems quite maudlin, it is real and part of life. I've read some teenage prose lately trying to romanticize death, but there is nothing romantic about it. It is ugly and cruel, and final. What I want to say, is that if you do not know God's redeeming love, death will seal your final destination when the judgement of man comes. Everyone will spend eternity somewhere: for those who know God, though our bodies perish, our souls will be in His presence! It awaits anyone who is willing to receive it. I'd be glad to share with you how to do that. Just ask.