Power and Protection!--Part 14
CLTP 20
True-Life Stories of God's Help in Crisis!
Special Christmas Issue!--Merry Christmas!
(Recommended reading for 9 years old and up. Selected stories may be read with younger children at adults' discretion.)
Christmas Eve in the Nursery
--By Sue Monk Kidd
It was Christmas Eve and not a creature was stirring on the paediatric [1] floor of the hospital. I was the nurse scheduled to work. I sat at the desk, staring at the piece of plastic holly on the wall, feeling miserable. I thought about the last-minute shopping I wanted to do, the cookies that I hadn't made, the carolling. It isn't fair, I thought. I'm missing Christmas Eve!
I stood up and dragged my feet down the deserted corridor. I stopped at the sick nursery and sighed. There was that tacky plastic holly again, taped over the door. I pushed open the door and went in. There was only one child in the nursery, a tiny baby a few weeks old. He had a respiratory infection and seemed to be improving. Still, a nursing assistant observed him around the clock. I noticed her standing by his crib as I came in.
"Merry Christmas," she said.
"Some way to spend Christmas Eve," I muttered. I began to scan the temperature chart across the room, when I heard an almost inaudible [2] little gasp.
"My God! He's stopped breathing!" cried the nursing assistant.
I raced for the crib and leaned over the baby. He was limp, turning dusky blue around the mouth. I found a thready [3] heartbeat, but practically no respiration. "Get a doctor and a respiratory therapist," I said. "FAST!"
Seconds ticked by. I cleared the baby's throat with suction, pulled back his chin and inserted a tiny plastic airway. Hurry, I kept thinking. I placed the air bag over his nose and mouth and began to squeeze. In and out, in and out, breathing air into his lungs. My other hand held the stethoscope [4] over his chest and listened to his heart patter like a faint little clock winding down.
The nursery door crashed open. In poured two doctors, another nurse, a laboratory technician and a respiratory therapist. We worked frantically around the crib in a maddening blur of emergency drugs, hissing oxygen and the blip of a heart monitor. Gradually the activity began to slow. Everything that medicine could do had been done. The baby lay unmoving, except for the mechanical rise and fall of his chest by a respirator.
The room grew quiet. Now it seemed every heart focused on the baby. Nothing seemed to matter except that the limp baby boy breathe again on his own. Lord, help him, I prayed.
"Breathe," said a doctor. "Come on, little fellow, breathe!"
"Please, God, help him breathe, please!" whispered the nurse beside me.
I saw the plea in every face as the prayer seemed to move around the crib like a circle of hope.
Suddenly a gurgle drifted up from the crib. Next, a cough ... and then a tiny cry! The respirator was removed. Everyone waited, all eyes on the baby. He curled his fingers and waved his arms in the air. And then breathed ... all by himself.
I turned away, hiding the tears that filled my eyes. I couldn't help but believe that I was standing on the rim of a magnificent miracle. It was Christmas Eve and a baby boy was alive! The extraordinary and precious gift of life had been laid at his feet by Someone other than the little band of people who surrounded his crib. The presence of Jesus was filling the nursery. I knew He had been in the midst of it all. I wondered if perhaps His presence wasn't especially alive in nurseries everywhere on this night of all nights. And in that moment my heart was drawn to Him in some deep and mysterious way I could not explain.
I felt a tug at the back of my uniform, and turned around. "The baby's parents are here," said the ward clerk. "They saw what was going on through the view window before I could stop them. They are quite shook up."
With the baby pink and kicking again, I slipped out and found his mama and daddy in the waiting room. They were holding hands, staring at the cold mist beyond the window.
"Your baby had a difficult time," I said. "But he is much better."
"He's alive?" asked the mother, her hands trembling at her cheeks.
"He's alive and holding his own."
Tears welled up in her eyes. The father's eyes, too, sparkled with the hint of tears. "Thank you," he struggled to say. "Thank you all."
"You've given us a wonderful Christmas present," said the mother, "our baby's life."
I blinked back tears, unable to speak. I wanted to tell them that it was really their son who had given me a gift. He had touched my life in a special way. He had helped me find my way back to Jesus--the One Who is at the heart of Christmas.
The Christmas Expedition
--By Alexander Ness
As a lad of 15, I lived with my parents and 14 brothers and sisters on a farm that was close to the North Pole in Alberta, Canada. The nearest town of any size was 80 miles away. We raised and preserved our own food, made our own clothes, even sheared our own sheep to get wool to make our mittens and socks.
It was a hard life--those Depression years over half a century ago--and yet a beautiful one. Often as I plowed furrows for planting in spring, I would watch the rich soil turning beneath the blade and the birds soaring overhead in the brilliant blue sky and I'd feel like throwing back my head and singing--and often I did.
My father made his living by farming and running a general store. But when Sunday came, all work--and play--stopped. My father was a lay preacher for a Baptist congregation, and the whole family spent four hours at church every Sunday.
My father would have liked nothing better than for me to be a preacher, too. But I was having none of that. God played no personal part in my high-spirited life.
Christmases were festive occasions in our house, with food and games and family fun. But there were never any what I considered real presents, only little paper bags with some sweets and an orange, some raisins and some nuts. Maybe there'd be a dime, or even a quarter inside if the crops had been good.
But as the Christmas of 1936 approached, I decided that things were going to be different. I devised a plan to make some money and buy some real, store-bought presents for everyone. I convinced my brother-in-law Metro, who was 25, that we should travel north into the wilderness and bring back fish from Primrose Lake. This year, we'd heard, men were fishing through the ice with nets, scooping up even more fish than usual, fish that Metro and I could bring back to sell to shoppers stocking up on food for the holidays.
I was overjoyed at the thought of the money we'd make. Thirty, 40, maybe even 50 dollars--a huge sum for such hard times. No little brown bags for my family this year!
But my father intervened. "I'd rather you didn't go, Son," he said, "not in this weather, into territory where you've never been before. The horses are tired--you could be putting them, and yourself, in danger. We have enough food and money to get by."
But I was stubborn. Danger was the furthest thing from my mind. And my days of just "getting by" were over. I promised my father we'd be back soon (and rich, I thought to myself), and Metro and I prepared for the trip. Metro readied his own bobsled and team of horses. I harnessed our docile red gelding [5] Tom and our gentle grey mare Queen into the shaft that held them to my bobsled. Neither Tom nor Queen were exactly what you'd call stamped with fire, but they were good horses who had served us steadily, and could certainly do the job I had in mind.
We set off for the first of five days of travel, five days in which the light came late and darkness early. It was slow going--we had to break our way through snow often two feet deep, over icy expanses marked by gnarled scrub pines and jutting rocks. At night we made camp and slept in shifts, one of us always awake to tend our fire and keep the timber wolves at bay. The wolves were always at our heels, their howling breaking through the moonlit silence.
At dusk on the fifth day, we reached our destination--Primrose Lake. Its name sounded like soft blossoms and lapping blue waters, but now its surface glinted icy-white and diamond hard for miles in front of us.
To our dismay there were a number of other people there too, obviously with the same idea. Metro and I hurried to join them, and for several days we slept with the fishermen in a shack near the lake. We covered the horses with blankets and put them in an old log shelter.
We worked all through the week, hacking out openings in the six-inch thickness of ice, dangling bait into the water, then scooping the fish into nets. It was tedious, tiring work; and we were relieved when our sleds were full of northern pike, whitefish and perch.
At last it was time to leave the ice and start for home. Just as we were making last-minute preparations, I heard a dull, thudding sound reverberating in the distance. Thunder? I hurried to insert the connecting pin that anchored the horses' stays to the sled.
I patted the flanks of Tom and Queen. How tired they seemed. But I knew they'd get us home all right--as long as they weren't called on to do much more than that.
I climbed aboard the sled. All I wanted to do now was to get home. Something, I didn't know what, was making me uneasy.
"Let's travel on the ice for awhile," Metro said. "It will be easier." He waved a mittened hand and set off. I moved my team out and behind him, the sled creaking under its heavy load.
We clopped along about a quarter of a mile out from shore, and soon saw two men heading out to where we'd been. "How's the fishing?" they called.
"Not worth much now," Metro called back. "Lots of fellas were here last week."
At that instant, as the sled shuddered beneath me, I heard the same deep thudding sound again, but this time I knew it wasn't thunder. The ice was cracking!
The surface below me suddenly buckled, shifted, lurched! Water surged up between Metro and me and the men with the empty sleds. The newcomers whirled and whipped their horses back toward the bank.
Metro's horses were alongside the opening crack. He lashed them with his whip, and they cleared the break at once, pulling him and his sled to safety. His horses bolted across the ice and headed for shore.
I stood up and cracked my whip over my terrified team. The bobbing ice floe we were on was starting to sink! "Hey, Tom, hey, Queen!" I shouted, trying to get them to cross to the higher, solid area. Our island of ice was sinking deeper, now maybe 10 inches lower than the main surface and separating fast. We were tilting forward. At any moment we could capsize and plunge into the icy water.
The horses went wild. They reared and whinnied. In their terror, they refused to move from the frigid water now bubbling up over their hooves.
Desperately I tried to pull out the connecting pin. Free of our load, the horses--and I--might make it to safety. And then my voice rang out over the ice: "God, help me--please, God, help me!"
There was an incredible lurch. I looked up to see Tom--Tom, the placid horse who minutes before had seemed almost too tired to go anywhere--lunge across that icy gulf and up onto the higher shelf of ice. Never before, never since, have I seen a horse empowered with such super strength. Tom pulled Queen, and me, and the loaded sled, with him. And as his hooves hit the other side, our sinking block of ice rose up for a split second, just high enough to let our sled slide across to the firm ice before it smashed back to a level that would have made our crossover impossible.
Tom and Queen took off at a full gallop for the shore while I held tight, praying to God all the while. In front of me were no longer a grey mare and a red gelding, but two whirlwinds fleeing in terror. They hit the bank and clattered over the rocky land, the sled almost breaking up on impact. "Whoa, Tom, whoa, Queen, easy now; we're safe, we're safe." The horses stopped and I tumbled from the sled and threw my arms around their necks. Tom was trembling something awful. I patted him. "Steady, old fella, steady." Whatever, I wondered, had made him do such an incredible thing? And as I asked the question, I knew the answer:
I had shouted to God for help and He had heard me. And terrified old Tom had taken us for the leap of his life.
Five days later as Metro and I plodded closer to home, I worried about the reception I'd be receiving. My father had urged me not to go, had cautioned that it might be dangerous. And here I was arriving days later than I'd promised, with animals I had nearly killed and a sled I had battered badly. In addition, it was clear from all the other fishermen at Primrose Lake that there'd be a glut of fish on the market. I wasn't returning home as a triumphant money-maker--but as a tired, nearly drowned boy with a mess of unwanted fish on his hands.
I felt sheepish and humble as we finally clopped up to the big log farmhouse. Everybody rushed out to greet us. Mama kept shaking her head as she listened to our story, and then she began to cry softly. "Thank God, you're home safely," she said.
My father looked at me thoughtfully. As I stared at him, wondering what kind of a stern reproach he was going to utter, his eyes filled with tears. And then my father reached out and drew me to him. "You're home," he said with a sigh of relief, "home in time for Christmas."
And what a Christmas it was! Mother made delicacies from her native Ukraine. There were special breads, some of them sparkling with sugar--a rare treat for children who usually ate their porridge with salt. There were steaming hot dumplings studded with plump blueberries that had been canned the autumn before; there were buns crisp with poppy seeds. And, of course, a huge, golden turkey.
Relatives and friends arrived in sleighs with bells jingling in the icy air. Inside, everyone gathered around a fragrant tree decked with pine cones and garlands of fleecy wool--from our own sheep--while my father read the story of the Nativity from the big family Bible. Then he prayed, thanking God for the gift of His Heavenly Son, and asking God's blessing on each of Dad's own children, all 15 of us. "And especially, God," he said, "thank You for the safe return of Alex."
Several years were to pass before I surrendered my life completely to Jesus and went into full-time Christian service as an evangelist.
But that was the Christmas that I received an abundance of gifts. Those little brown bags were passed out as usual--and how I treasured them. Gold, frankincense and myrrh could not have been more welcome, for the life that once had seemed so poor now glowed with the richness that had always been there.
Yet the greatest gift of all that Christmas, the one that I've held close all my life, came to me in that moment of desperation on the sinking ice floe--the knowledge that God was not just some strict Being Who kept me from having fun on Sundays, but a real God, a God Who cared enough to help a struggling boy the day the ice broke.
It's So Cold, and Hope Is So Hard to Find
--By Steve Smart
On Christmas Eve, 1981, a small, six-seat Cherokee plane carrying five people crashed onto a remote ridge high in one of the most rugged ranges of Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Gary Meeks, a Dallas construction executive, was piloting the plane that carried his wife Pat, his two sons (Arnie, 18, and Darren, 15) and a family friend and former business associate, Steve Smart, 34. They were on their way to a skiing vacation in Aspen when the plane seemed to lose power. All five survived the subsequent crash-landing, but with Pat seriously hurt and Steve unconscious, Gary left the plane to search for help. More than 24 hours later Steve slowly regained consciousness. Here is Steve's story of what followed:
Friday, Christmas Day: It took all afternoon today to clear my head. I was so groggy--every time I looked out the window of our wrecked plane at the mountainous granite walls, rocky outcroppings and towering jack pines, all half-hidden behind a veil of blowing snow, I'd think it was just a bad dream. But then I'd look around at Pat and the boys, their faces filled with fear and concern, shivering in the frosty cabin, and I'd realize again what had happened. But I don't remember the crash at all. All I know now is that my shoulder is dislocated and it's cold and cramped and I'm in pain.
But Pat's the most seriously hurt. "I think my back may be broken," she told me. The boys seem fine; they told me they went out yesterday to pack snow around the back cargo door that had sprung open. With the suitcases piled in front of the door, it's a pretty good seal. It'll keep some of the cold out. Against all odds, and because of Gary's skill when he belly flopped the plane into a snowbank, we have a pretty good capsule to survive in. For a while. There's no food; Christmas dinner tonight was a handful of snow. We're wearing only street clothes and light coats. Most of our ski clothes and equipment were shipped ahead. Only the boys have winter parkas and boots along.
I wonder if anyone knows we've crashed? No matter. There's nothing for us to do but wait for somebody to find us--a white plane half-buried in snow.
Saturday: Last night was horrible! It came quickly and lingered long--15 hours of the most overpowering blackness I've ever experienced. Every ten minutes I was looking at my watch, wondering when, if ever, the night would be over. Up here, the wind shrieks through the trees, a sound almost too painful to listen to. And it's cold--oh, so very cold. We slept only in fitful bursts. The rest of the time, we talked a little, and prayed, for Gary. We prayed that he made it through safely. But did he? Then we just stared--into the heart of blackness.
It's snowing and blowing even harder and more furiously than yesterday. Arnie and Darren did venture out of the plane to look for Gary, but found nothing. Once I heard a distinct crack! and whirled around in my seat, only to see a branch had snapped off a nearby tree. The boys tried to use the wood to start a signal fire, but the wind kept blowing it out.
But what a moment today! Arnie was cleaning out his suitcase--he was going to fill it with snow for eating--when he found his Bible. I've never been that thrilled about a Bible before. But we all took turns reading favourite passages. Our spirits are much higher tonight than this morning.
Sunday: As tired as I was last night, sleep still came only sporadically [6]. Once I awoke with a start--I couldn't feel my body. It was numb all over. I panicked. Frantically I rubbed myself until the feeling came back. But when the feeling finally came back, so did the pain, especially in my shoulder. Finally, gritting my teeth, I yanked on the shoulder and, to my amazement, it popped back into place!
This morning I heard two planes fly overhead, but we couldn't see them; it's still snowing as fiercely as ever. Little things inside the plane tell me our time is slowly running out. I can feel it in the numbness of my feet. And the boys are becoming quieter. We don't joke about the snow any more--in fact, we don't even eat it. Arnie discovered that the hoarfrost growing thicker and thicker on the inside walls of the cabin tastes better than snow. We use credit cards to scrap it off. We keep the window clear that way, too--we need that lifeline to the World.
Mostly, though, we just huddled close today. Arnie brought out his Bible and we read. How much like the Psalmist David we feel, crying out to God in the midst of our despair.
The boys, with their long but neatly kept brown hair, flashing dark eyes and endless energy, remind me all the time of Gary. If I dwell too much on him or friends or our situation, it becomes too much to bear, and I just have to weep, my whole body heaving with sighs, wrenching sobs. It happens to all of us. Our remedy is to hug each other, as tightly as we can. That simple touch seems to supply as much strength as it does warmth to a shivering body.
Monday: I heard it shortly after daylight--a low throbbing sound in the distance. It was coming closer, its rhythmic thub-thub-thub unmistakable. A helicopter! Darren saw it first. As it got closer to us it slowed, and then began descending to the bottom of the valley about a half-mile from the plane.
"They're landing! They've found us!" one of the boys shouted. How can I describe the joy that pulsed through each of us as we watched seven, eight, nine people jump out of the big, olive-green chopper and begin snowshoeing their way through the trees toward us. We were all hugging each other and thanking God, hollering and singing and carrying on in the best Texas tradition.
The big chopper flew off again as we excitedly squirmed in our cramped seats, waiting for the people to work their way up to us. We couldn't go out to meet them--chest-deep snow and frozen feet precluded that. "It sure is taking them a long time," Pat said. "Can we signal them somehow?" We yelled a little, but the wind was still too loud.
"It's getting dark," Darren said, and almost immediately the helicopter reappeared, coming over the mountain as it had that morning, settling down in that same spot in the same little valley, kicking up the same snow. We watched with wide eyes as our rescue party began to reboard the chopper. We saw it all! Our desperate screams reached only our own ears. The helicopter lifted off and disappeared into the dusk. They had not seen us--they didn't even know we were here!
How can I explain the devastation we all felt? All we had been holding out for, hoping for, had been snatched away. We all broke into tears and sobbed. But finally, after about an hour, when the tears had stopped, Arnie pulled out his Bible and we read some more. How real it's become to us: "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. Our fathers trusted in Thee: they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them. They cried unto Thee, and were delivered" (Psalm 22:2,4-5).
We must continue to trust, to wait for that deliverance.
Monday night: It's been the best and worst night of my entire life. All night long the wind had moaned eerily. None of us can sleep, at least not for long, and somebody has to be awake at all times to make sure Darren stays awake. His body temperature has dropped so dramatically that we're afraid we might lose him if we let him sleep. So we've been talking most of the time--sometimes praying, sometimes sharing the private concerns of our hearts. Tonight, we all prayed that God would do with us as He wanted. We've put our lives entirely in His hands now.
What a turning point that has been for me! Before the crash, I'd gotten to the point in my life where I'd quit praying. I didn't feel worthy or faithful enough to God to even approach Him, when so often I'd ignored Him. I hated to reach out to God, because that made me examine myself, and that hurt. But these last days I've known His presence. How alive those old Bible stories have become. I'm the Prodigal Son of the parable, flawed, coming on my knees to ask for the barest essentials. I want that relationship with my heavenly Father again.
We talked a lot about faith tonight--what was our purpose here, why were there so many obstacles in life?
"Steve, what have you found?" Arnie asked me. "How do you get through hard times? And why, why are they there?"
"I don't know why we have them--they sure keep coming, don't they?" I said. "But I do know this. It seems that every time I've lived through a tough time, and stopped to look, I've learned something. Something good."
"What good has come from this, Steve?"
I marvel at the resilience [7] of Arnie's spirit. His questions come from deep within, with no tinge of bitterness. He knows that we're all slowly freezing to death, yet like the Psalmist he's still grasping for that hope. I want so badly to give him that, to give him life. But that's not mine to do. "Arnie, I don't know what this means for you," I told him. "But tonight, when we prayed about putting our lives in God's hands, I experienced a peace I've never felt before. I discovered, for sure, that God will sustain me, no matter what. And that's good."
The warmth that's grown among us tonight has defied the bitter cold. As we talked, we opened up to one another in a way that affirmed the growing trust we're feeling, not only in God, but in each other. There were tears again, for a father and husband and friend we all know has been gone too long. For relationships, for friendships. But mostly they are tears of joy, for the blessings of God we're only now beginning to fully comprehend.
The moaning wind has stopped. An early morning peace has come to the mountains--and to us.
Tuesday: We were greeted this morning with streaks of sunlight, the first time since the crash. But there was no other sign of life, save two squirrels. It was quiet, peaceful and very cold.
Pat was the first to repeat the question of last night. "Steve, why are we suffering like this? Why so much?" Her back is really hurting her and, as with the rest of us, the cold has taken a severe toll.
I didn't know what to say. "Maybe Job will help," I finally answered. "Maybe now we can really understand what he has to say about suffering."
So Pat's been reading, chapter after chapter.
Pat just closed the Bible--I guess that means she's finished. I wonder what she found, what she'll say about...
Wait! There's something coming down the hill. It's ... it's a person, a man! Where did he come from? I didn't hear anything--no plane, no helicopter. Does he see us? Yes, yes, he does! He's waving and shouting, "Over here, over here!" There are more of them, two, three, four. They're running down the slope from over the ridge. Oh, God, thank You, God. You never forgot us, God, in five days here. You never left us. You never did--and I know now You never will!
A man's head poked through the door of the cabin.
"Hi, folks," the man said, shaking the fluffy white coat of powder off his parka. "It's awfully good to see you!"
The search for Steve, Pat, Arnie and Darren--one of the largest in Colorado history--had only resumed that Tuesday because of the sunshine. The previous night, it was decided that rescuers would make one last-ditch effort to find the plane only if weather permitted. And when Ken Zafren, a medical student from Oregon who had volunteered to be a part of the search party, found the four, there was less than an hour of daylight left. The rescuers were shocked to find the four alive. Convinced that the group would be dead, the rescuers wept with joy, along with the survivors, at finding them.
Pat and the boys were taken off the mountain that night in a helicopter, after the chopper pilot defied darkness and a new blizzard to land his craft on a wobbly boulder near the crash site. Near whiteout conditions finally forced him to take off before Steve and some rescuers could be loaded aboard. The next day, in a snowstorm, 60 people helped bring Steve down by sled--it took nine-and-a-half hours.
But this story of faith rediscovered and renewed doesn't end at the base of a mountain--it goes on, like faith itself, growing and developing, encouraging and sustaining. And if anyone ever needed a life-giving faith to endure, those four did.
For each survivor it was a long and difficult recovery, made more so by the loss of Gary. His body was finally found in September, after an intensive search. Yet, the courage that faith gives, the knowledge that God was with them remained alive and vital, and brought healing of both body and spirit.
Today, that faith lives stronger, deeper, more vibrant than ever in Steve and Pat and Arnie and Darren. "The crash was a new beginning for me," Steve says. "All that I went through was a small price to pay--for faith."
Discussion Questions:
Following are a number of questions, some of which can be applied to each of the stories in this magazine. After reading each story, you can choose several of these questions for discussion. You do not necessarily need to ask or discuss every question after reading every story, but you may choose those which apply and are helpful.
1. The people in the story responded in one way to what happened to them.--What are some other ways that people might react if the same thing happened to them?
2. Does this story show you anything about the benefits of the training, education and instruction you have received? Please discuss.
3. How might you have reacted if this had happened to you? How do you think you should react in similar situations? What would you pray and ask God to do?
4. Did you feel that the people in these stories could have been more of a witness? If so, how?
5. What lessons could you learn from a situation like this?
6. Why do you think God allowed this situation for these people?
7. Is there anything in these stories that you don't understand?
8. Did the Lord do a miracle in this story? If so, how did He use the miracle in the lives of the people in the story? Did it bring a change in their lives?
9. What specific answers to prayer are there in this story?
10. Does this story encourage your faith that God will help you in difficult, dangerous or seemingly impossible situations?
11. Have you ever experienced the Lord doing a miracle to save your life or someone else's? If so, what was it? Did it change your outlook on life or your relationship with the Lord or others?
Glossary for Young Readers
(The meaning given is for the use of the word in the story and does not cover every meaning of the word.)
[1] paediatrics: the branch of medicine dealing with children's diseases and the care of babies and children
[2] inaudible: cannot be heard
[3] thready: weak and shallow
[4] stethoscope: an instrument used by doctors when listening to the sounds of the heart, lungs or other parts of the body
[5] gelding: a male horse which has had its sex glands removed which makes the horse easier to control and calmer
[6] sporadically: now and then at intervals of time; occasionally
[7] resilience: the power to spring back quickly