The voice of the Holy Spirit is so wonderful and has come to our aid so many times to avoid countless tragedies. I recall a story my Grandmother told of how she was working a lot when her children were young. She had to leave for work early while the older ones got the younger ones off to school. She went a piece of the way down the road and thought “I need to go back to check the house.” Twice it happened and she did nothing. But the third time she heard the voice, it felt so intense that she slammed on her brakes and turned around. Upon entering her home, she saw nothing unusual. She checked all the rooms, where here children were still sleeping soundly. At last, she went into the bathroom. Her son had washed a pair of jeans out the night before and had laid them over the towel rack to dry. Below the towel rack was an old-fashioned gas heater. The fabric had gotten so hot that the jeans caught on fire. Just as my grandmother entered the bathroom the jeans had burst into flames and split right into and were able to drop onto the highly flammable linoleum flooring.

Immediately, she grabbed the flaming jeans and threw them into the standing bathwater that was still there from the night before. Listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice, saved the life of all my Grandmother’s six children. If she would not have listened to that voice, I would have never been alive to tell you this story.

Another time, Grandma had just a strong impression all day long that something was going on with her sister Lillian, and she began to pray throughout the day. “Oh, Lord, protect my sister and her family.” She prayed as she was doing dishes and as she was doing all her daily chores. She just couldn’t shake it. She knew her sister needed prayer, but she did not know why. At about five o’ clock in the evening, she could stand it no longer. The burden of this became so strong that she dropped everything she was doing and went to her bedroom, flung herself onto the bed with her face down. Grandma prayed and prayed until she finally had peace and the burden lifted. (My grandma was a Nazarene).

A day or so later, it came to her knowledge that her sister’s town had been in a tornado at 5:00 in that same afternoon that my grandma was praying. Her sister, too, had been doing chores and laundry that day. Usually she fit a large wash tub in a certain narrow space in her home where she could keep it out of the way. But for some reason, on this day, she did not put it back.

With the sound of a mighty rushing wind like a train going through the city, her husband came through the door and grabbed his wife and two babies, right as the tornado hit. He moved them rapidly into that empty narrow space that had a support structure. Right as they huddled together, the roof of their house was torn off and their home destroyed. Many lives were lost that day. But her sister’s life and that of her family was spared as the hand and heart of God moved on Grandma to pray.

As an infant, my same Grandma had scarlet fever, and died. Her doctor came to the house and pronounced her dead. After he left, my great grandma rubbed her legs and prayed over her for about half an hour until life came back into her! Think, think! That’s two near misses already in my ancestry timeline! This causes me to ponder…

Think of all the near misses each of your ancestors had to experience just to make it all the way down the timeline to you so that you could be born!

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