Miracle in the kitchen

I got married in my early twenties and had never cooked a meal in my life. My husband had done chores at home since he was little and I didn't want him to find out how clueless I was where soufflés and sausages were concerned, so one of the first days of our married life in our small apartment in Dallas Dave went off to work and I went off into the kitchen. I had read Proverbs 31 and a couple of cookbooks and I had gleaned that women are supposed to be able to multitask. So I got three different dishes happening at the same time. It was such a long time ago, but I think I was mixing a batch of cookie dough, making a vegetable sauté and I was also heating some oil in a big pot in order to deep fry something. I must have gotten too absorbed in the cookie dough, so when I turned around after a few minutes the cooking oil in the pot was on fire. Big flames were shooting up out of the pot. Panic-stricken I headed for the sink and turned on the tap.

That was the first and only time in my life that I heard God's audible voice. He did not say "I am that I am" or "Thou shalt be my prophet". He said: "Don't put water on it, just put the lid on the pot and get it off the stove". I did that and only got a slight burn on my finger, I was able to quickly stop the fire that way. Later people have told me that this was a good thing because water can be bad on oil fires. And on a regular basis, in the thirty years that have passed since that day, I have told the kids in Childrens' Church that most of the time when God speaks it is not in an audible voice, but more like a thought or the flutter of a butterfly wing in your heart. "But one time He did speak to me in an audible voice" I say, and then I tell them about my first attempt at being a super chef pie-slinging gourmet wife and how God bailed me out.

I have always been thankful for that little incident but today, so many years later, out of the corner of my eye I watched a fire safety show on TV. A man at a fire testing center demonstrated how just one sprinkle of water on a burning pot of oil made flames burst out everywhere. Dave came in and I rewound and showed it to him too. I had not realized what serious danger I was in back then. "If God hadn't spoken to me that day you might not have had a wife!" I told him. And I am still sitting here, dumbfounded. What a miracle it was, how awesome that God spoke to me so loudly and clearly at a time when all my thoughts concerned the difficulty of being a super wife. Divine impressions was the last thing on my mind that day and yet He spoke to me! And I have had thirty wonderful, rich years of raising three kids and a church and I have cooked many great meals since that day. On occasion I have paused and been thankful for that little incident, but now that I've seen what could have happened I am just in awe!

I wonder what it will be like when we get home and God starts rewinding the movies of our lives. I think there will be lots of playbacks of situations like the experience I had that day. Times when He kept His hand on us and had His angels working overtime just to keep us safe. What a privilege to be a friend of God. To go through life with access to the Most High, to have Him speak to us, whether it be like the flutter of a butterfly wing in our heart or major earthquake-like encounters. Or just good common sense that your Mama never taught you. Thank you Father God for keeping your hand on me. That day and every day!