God has fought battles for me 507 - 3 - 6

Perhaps battle is too strong a word for what God has done for me throughout my life. I grew up in Michigan, the third of three children. We lived in a big old frame house that was very expensive to heat. We have plenty of blankets upstairs but no heat from the old coal burning furnace. Winter mornings the three of us kids would race downstairs and the first one down would to get to sit on the register in the living room and warm up.

As the runt of the litter, I rarely was the first one to get to the cozy register. One morning I was victorious and was soaking up the warmth in my flannel nightie. This was years before flame resistant materials were common. I heard an audible voice behind me telling me to get up. Normally I would’ve argued but this time I immediately stood up a distance from the register.

There must a buildup of coal dust collecting in the vent to the register because a flame shot out about 3 feet. The flame lasted a very short time but I remember it distinctly. I told my mom about it but she didn’t seem to believe me. I remember years later that there was a dark discoloration inside the grading of the register. Eventually mom had the furnace converted to gas. All these decades later I can see in my mind’s eye myself as a very young child turning around and seeing the flame. So, was this the devil trying to destroy a child of God before I was old enough to oppose him?

I nearly drowned in a running creek when I was about five. I was very calm as I flowed downstream on my back under the surface of the water. I remember looking up through the clear water running over me and seeing the sun. My sister and a friend of grabbed me and dragged me over to a log, tree root or something in the river. No longer calm It seemed like I could see myself hanging on and screaming. Later my sister told me that they grabbed me as I floated by. A God thing? Most definitely.

At the age of six I came down with paralytic polio but survived to live a normal life thanks to wonderful medical treatment as well as a very encouraging mother. Six months in a convalescent hospital with Sister Kenny Treatment followed by nightly exercises with my mom. God had me in the right place at the right time.

Battles with Satan that I was too young to realize what they were? I don’t know but here I am decades later an ambassador for Christ.