The Meal

On a little different note, yesterday in church our pastor shared a story about God protecting him, and it reminded me of a situation that occurred years ago in my life.  It was the fall of 1994, and I was about 6 months pregnant with our first child, Diane.  Jeremy and I had been married for about a year and a half, and he was attending Rhema Bible Training Center in Broken Arrow, OK.  We had wanted to go at the same time, but it seemed like he should go first and I should wait a year, so that is what we did.  Soon after, I found out I was expecting our first child, so it was good that I hadn't started school that year, even though I had really wanted to be there with him.

We went to church at Rhema Bible Church, and it was and is a very large church.  Now, we grew up in a small town, and graduated from a small school.  Everyone knew each other, and it was a very homey environment.  So, being in this large church, as wonderful as it was, was a HUGE change for us.  They did have what they called School of the Bible (basically Sunday School), and they divided the classes up by age and marital status.  Thus, we were in the Young Marrieds up to age 29 class. 

That particular Sunday in class our teacher shared about a family who was going through a difficult time (The wife had been in the hospital.) and could use some meals each day of the week.  I quickly raised my hand to say that I could bring a meal to them the very next day.  I was excited, because this seemed like a very small-town thing to do, and I thought it would be great to be a blessing to this family.  Come to find out, they lived far out in the country on the south side of Broken Arrow.  Now this was before the time of Mapquest and GPS systems and all that, so I got their address, phone number and some very VAGUE directions on how to get there.  "You go down this gravel road for about 3 miles, and you'll see a white house on your left.  That's their house."  That kind of a thing.

Jeremy went to school in the morning, and worked all afternoon and evening, so I was home alone that Monday.  I fixed a meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls and some sort of dessert.  I must say it smelled so good.  We were on a very limited food budget, so we really didn't eat meals like that, and it made my mouth water just smelling it!  Anyway, I had been calling their house to get better directions, but the line had been busy all day long.  I knew they had two teenagers, so I figured one of them was on the phone.  Well, it was getting close to the dinner hour and the meal was hot and ready, so I decided I would just start heading to their house with the directions I had.

A note here:  Please remember that I was very young at this time, and I didn't make the best safety decision in this situation.  You learn a lot as you age, which, by the way, is a huge benefit about being forty.  You have a lot of past to look at, and you learn a lot from it.  But anyway, lots of people would have realized it probably wasn't the best idea for a young, very pregnant woman to take a meal to a family out in the country all by herself, but unfortunately I wasn't one of those people.  So, off I headed to their house, believing that the Lord would lead me right to it! :)

I had a great time driving out there, listening to praise and worship music and singing my heart out to the Lord.  I hit the gravel road, looked at my odometer, and noted that in about 3 miles I would be to their house.  I was really in the middle of nowhere.  There was just open country everywhere, no houses, nothing.  But, sure enough, in about 3 miles on the left side of the road was a white house, set pretty far back from the road.

"Glory to God!" I thought, "Here it is!"

Now, I had all that yummy food in the passenger's seat of my little blue Chevy Spectrum, and I decided to leave it in the car and just go knock on the door.  (You are probably inwardly cringing right now, and I really don't blame you. Yes, I was very naive at this point in my life.) So, I walked up to the door and rang the doorbell.  I listened and could hear loud music coming from inside the house, but there was no answer.  I hadn't heard the doorbell ring, so I rang it again and knocked.  Still no answer, but I figured someone must be home because of the loud music.  I knew the mom was in the hospital and the dad could have been at work, so I guessed it was the teenagers.

I came to the conclusion that they probably couldn't hear the doorbell (I knew that I couldn't.) or me knocking, so I decided to walk around to the backyard.  I walked around to the right side of the house, and got about two-thirds of the way back, when these two humongous dogs began running towards me.  I mean, they were huge!  I'm not a very tall lady, and these dogs were probably up to about my chest, though I didn't take very long to study them.  They were barking and running towards me with all their might, and they did not seem very happy to see me.

All that I could think of was my baby girl, Diane, and that I didn't want anything to happen to her.  I started running, as best I could being so big and pregnant, toward my car, but it was easy to see that there was no way I was going to make it to my car before those dogs made it to me.  Without even thinking, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Jesus!  Help me!"

Everything was happening very quickly, and it seemed that any minute those dogs would be on me, but I just kept my focus on getting to the car.  I reached the car, and grabbed the car door handle.  At that moment I turned and saw both those dogs jumping towards me, up on their hind legs.  And, they should have been on top of me, but they weren't.  I opened my car door and looked at them, and it looked like they were suspended in mid-air on a big piece of glass.  It was as if there was a piece of invisible glass between me and those dogs, and they were laying against it.  It's hard to believe myself, but that is exactly what happened, and it happened very quickly also.  I jumped in that car and closed my car door as fast as I could, and the second my door was closed, both of those dogs fell against the driver's side car door window.  Bam!  It was as if as soon as I closed the door, the invisible glass disappeared and the dogs fell.

They weren't happy about that, and they ran away the other direction.  I just sat there for a minute, breathless and shaking.  I drove away from that house back into town, and the whole way I thanked God for protecting me and my sweet little baby from those dogs!  It was miraculous, absolutely miraculous!  I thanked him and praised Him the whole way home!  I'm not sure if it was an angel that protected me that day or some other kind of divine intervention, but what I do know is that when I called on Jesus to help me, He did!

You may be wondering at this point about the food, or maybe you had forgotten all about that.  It was still setting there in the car, and at this point I was tempted to have it for our dinner that evening!  But, can you believe that when I got home, I called our School of the Bible teacher and she said to just meet him up at the church recreation center (about 1 mile from our apartment)?  So I did, and he was very appreciative for the food for his family.  To God be all the glory!  Yep, He takes care of His children, even when they don't make the smartest decisions.  Just another reason that I love Him so very much!