Today, exactly thirteen years ago (on St. Patrick’s
Day) our house burned. I had come in
from working at the post office that Saturday morning and after lunch decided
to wash my hair. First I turned on the central heat because it was a tad chilly
in the house; (Mistake #1) then I let Baby Bird out of the cage...(Mistake
#2!) As I was rinsing my hair, I could
hear Baby Bird squawking and flying wild about the room. I finished rinsing my hair and put a towel
over it and raised my head up.
I could tell what he was upset about and it was
pretty serious! Black smoke was pouring
out of the vents in the ceiling. I
hurried around trying to get Baby Bird on my hand to put him back in his cage
and get us outside. He wouldn’t let
me. I was beginning to feel the effects
of the smoke and sadly, had to get out and leave him. The squirrel cage of the
central heat unit in the attic had frozen up.
One of our neighbors later that afternoon, said that he heard an
explosion before he saw the smoke. I
didn’t hear it with the water running over my head.
As I went out to move the car from under the carport
and down the road a ways, an old classmate stopped and told me he would go tell
Bobby at the shop....As I was about to move the van, Bobby drove up and moved
it for me and someone had called the fire dept. I told Bobby, in tears, that I couldn’t get
Baby Bird out.
Bobby wanted to go in and
get Baby Bird but I was afraid the burning ceiling would fall in on him.
I told him he’d probably be dead from the smoke by that time. By that time there was quite an audience out
in the road watching the fire with me. The
fire dept had left the screen door propped open and Bobby saw Baby Bird fly by and
went in to get him and brought him to me.
I was so happy to have the little fellow again!
The month before the fire, my kidneys shut down from
a prescription I had received from a doctor who thought I had rheumatoid arthritis,
which I was found to not have. I was in
the hospital about 2 weeks until they were sure my kidneys were working okay
again. That’s why the smoke got to me so
fast.
About a month after the fire, I lost my full time
(temporary position) and went back to
part time. They had left me in the full
time position 8 months longer than they were supposed to over the 6 months’
time limit. So that was a triple whammy
in about the space of about 3 months. Three
bad happenings??? No, not really! It wasn’t long until I realized they were all
three big blessings? We are told in
Romans 8:28 that “....all things work together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
All of these really did work together for our
good. In June of that year I could tell
my strength was not building up as fast as I needed it to, so I retired from
the postal service. Eight years later
Bobby decided to retire from his barber shop.
So we have had these 5 years together without a constant watching of the
clock....just in time for our little Great-Grandchildren to arrive on the
scene. Life is good!
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