I Was Thinking of You ALL on October 11th!
The October Fire Event Baptism by Fire!
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Wagon. But Thank God! I did not drop the flaming torch, then and there. Instead, I endured deep burns on both hands as I carried it to the far end of the room. Had I dropped it then and there, I would not have bought the 3 minutes of time to think things over and choose to live and to make my escape. I would have been caught on fire. As it was, I thought for a moment that I had been caught on fire when I dropped the torch, for I heard and smelled my hair sizzle. I imagined that I had caught on fire. And images of movie scenes wherein the nuclear bomb explodes and the people are blown away by the heat came to mind. My 1st thought was this fiery image, and then I asked myself: "So this is how my life will end?" My mind then supplied an obituary: "American woman, trapped in old motorhome, burns to death in the middle of the night."
I knew I could safely get out a little window. All the time I had the rig, I said to myself comfortingly, "If there were ever a fire, I could get out this little window." (Ever since I was a teenager, I would comfort myself with having an escape avenue and a back-up if at all possible. When I was 12 and my family moved to The Barn to live in its remodeled upstairs, I had 2 back-up escape routes to get out of my 2nd story bedroom if fire ever took The Barn. My sister Sandy was totally crazed by then. She may have graduated Salutatorian from highschool. But she was angry, violent, and a goner. She used to threaten to set us all on fire, as her bedroom was downstairs and ours were all upstairs. We tended to take this seriously, as she had set a life-size playhouse Victor had made for us kids on fire. Thus, my penchant for escape routes in later years!) The thing is, I never actually tried to get out of this little, 15 inch square window. But on my June, 55th birthday, I had locked my keys inside my housetrailer; and I had squeezed through an even smaller window, getting stuck for a minute or 2 and leaving a big gash on my leg. That bit of recent practice would serve me well!
After the nuclear bomb image came to mind and the obituary, I realized I could actually die! This was not just a fire that I had isolated to the left end of the room, a fire that would take all my belongings, but a fire from which I would quickly escape! This was life-threatening! That was when the flaming, hot air filled my lungs and the heat of the little room nearly laid me down to sleep. My oxygen-starved brain had started to check out. Now, the 2nd experience, or 2nd round of thoughts, brought the Direct Encounter with Death and Life, with Satan and God. To the left of me were the flames, to the right was God. I was in the middle. My lungs were not getting enough oxy
gen. For a moment, I felt sleepy and peaceful and tired, like laying down and going to sleep. The Voice of Discouragement was speaking: "All the last few months, with your exhausted body and your aching knees, you almost welcomed something like this happening. Just spend the next few minutes as I command. And you will be free of all the futile projects and the endless, hopeless, failing work ahead of you. Just lay down on your bed, and do not fight this. I can set you free." Like that day on Copalis Beach in Washington, crossing the stream, I was feeling peaceful and removed from harm. In reality, I was barely conscious from lack of oxygen. Then I felt a pulling from my right. Then, I felt a pulling from left to right, until God reminded me, "You have been through so much in the past. You may have felt like you were dying with heart attack and stroke, boy friends and bankruptcies, $1.57 in the bank and bad knees, but you always got through to continue serving Me. You always woke up to a tomorrow. But if you do not make the right choice right now, when everyone else wakes up to face a new tomorrow, you will not be among them. You will be with Me. What do you want to do?" Now, the 3rd thought came to mind it revolved around my Father. Because Victor Bidwell had told me the last few minutes we were together that he would give The Lord Jesus Christ "serious consideration," and because his dying request was to have his ashes buried in the casket of his Christian mother, I have hopes he has been taken to The Lord. And in this 4th thought, I, too, for a moment, went to be with The Lord and to face Victor Bidwell and to tell him that I had never gotten The Victory Wagon on the road. I so wanted to see The Victory Wagon out doing its job, attracting The People to its joy and its message! I definitely did not want to have to face Victor with this "Fire Event" news! Then, to the left, over where the heat and crackling offered only chaos and destruction, the comfort which Death had been offering me, I saw as The Lie it was. (The movies never show the hot, hot air and the amazing, flesh-burning heat, and the gagging smoke all burning up the tiny air-sacs in your lungs! The movies just cannot do justice to the situations they are portraying!)
The decision had been made. I wanted out. I wanted a tomorrow. I wanted to finish my projects assigned. I climbed up onto the couch/bed and kicked out the screen window and proceeded to put my thigh, buttocks, back, and shoulders through the 15 inch square space. And I got stuck! What had I been thinking? The 4th occurence was a question that was now asked of me. It was not unkindly it was only
