and a little child shall lead them...

It was eleven o'clock at night, and Jonathan wandered into our room, unable to sleep. It had been an exhaustive evening last night, and after baseball practice and a meeting following that at church, I was tempted to just tell him to crawl in bed with Luis and I. Somehow I mustered up a bit of energy and walked with him back to his room. As we passed the window in the hall, something caught my eye. A fire was blazing just beyond my brother-in-law's property, and it appeared it was approaching the truck and home of the neighbor down the road. I called Luis, who was already half asleep, to come evaluate the situation. After watching the flames grow for a few seconds, he quickly telephoned his brother, David, and both of them stormed to the neighbor's place. When they got there, the man's truck was already being effected by the laps of fire that were brushing against the passenger door. David ran to the man's house, and banged on the door, but there was no answer. Luis had feared that this man, who is known to be a heavy drinker, may had been intoxicated and fallen asleep inside his truck, but the flames prohibited them for getting close enough to check inside. David ran and got his garden hose (which seemed to stretch longer than I have ever seen it stretch before) and began to douse to flames that were now bubbling the paint on the man's truck. Luis yelled for me to call 911. For what seemed like hours, but was only actually minutes, David and Luis were able to get the fire under control, just before the fire trucks showed up. Jonathan and I were sitting on our front porch, watching all of the flurry of action. The fire department flooded the truck and surrounding area with gallons of water, to ensure that the truck would not ignite. As they were finishing up, the neighbor man emerged from his house, surprised to see all the commotion. Thankfully he had been inside his home, and not in his truck. How he managed to not hear David's banging, Luis and David yelling to each other, the hiss of the cold water on the hot metal and flames, and the arrival of half of the Hampton Fire Department, and Police is beyond me. All I can say is that what could have been a fatal situation, had the truck blown and caught the house on fire, ended up being only some surface damage to the door of the vehicle, thanks to two hero brothers, and a little boy who couldn't sleep.

So many times things happen in the course of our day (or night as it was), that are interruptions that can irritate us. Had I simply told Jonathan to go back to bed on his own, or let him come to bed with us, I would have never seen the flames. All things happen for a reason, of that I am truly convinced. So the next time you are held up in traffic, or forget something and have to turn around and go back home, making you run even more late, remember: Maybe it was God's way of protecting you from some danger that would you have faced, had you been a few minutes earlier. Instead of getting irritated, as I was tempted to do in my state of exhaustion, take time to thank the Lord that He knows exactly how to lead and guide every situation, even if it disrupts our lifestyle and busy schedules.