Wildfire Miracle

We live on the edge of a range of hills in the western United States.  We have not had rain for over six weeks and the 100+ temperatures of the past month have turned the grass tinder dry.  You could almost spark a blaze by glaring at the grass. 

This past week, a backhoe hit a rock while digging a trench on the dry hillside, and a fire erupted.  The driver jumped down from his machine to stomp out the flame, but at that moment a dust devil wind caught it and flung it across the dry foliage starting a rampant wildfire that tore over the hills and doubled in size each day until it was over 20,000 acres in size.

I was a valley away when the fire started, completing my work day with a few errands at the stores.  When I came out to my car and saw white ash falling on it, from a clear blue sky, I said to myself, "this isn't good."  Within an hour a heavy smoke had filled the skies in both valleys.  200 firefighters and planes with water and fire retardant immediately began fighting it.  But as quickly as a firebreak was built, the fire would jump it. 

Our winds normally blow from the northwest.  And each day generally brings a stiff wind.  The fire roared over the hill and should have gone south down the other side where a subdivision of a 100 homes were built.  That would have been the expectation...and the residents were scanning the horizon with trepidation. 

But, out of the ordinary, winds began blowing from the south.  The fire burned into dry uninhabited valleys and farms, then turned north without damaging any homes. Although, even four days later the firefighters are still trying to get the upper hand, the residences are safe.

We could say it was a twist of nature.  We could say, it was just luck.  But with the dryness of these hills, and the brittleness of the grasses, it could easily have meant a devastating loss of homes.

Myself, I can see God's protecting hand in this.  There were a lot of prayers going up from my neighbors this week.

photo thanks to Brian Griffiths, August 2016

Not made for endings...

This quote from Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf has lingered in my mind ever since hearing it during LDS Conference this month. He said, "We Are Not Made for Endings....In light of what we know about our eternal destiny, is it any wonder that whenever we face the bitter endings of life, they seem unacceptable to us? There seems to be something inside of us that resists endings.

"Why is this? Because we are made of the stuff of eternity. We are eternal beings, children of the Almighty God, whose name is Endless and who promises eternal blessings without number. Endings are not our destiny.The more we learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the more we realize that endings here in mortality are not endings at all. They are merely interruptions—temporary pauses that one day will seem small compared to the eternal joy awaiting the faithful. How grateful I am to my Heavenly Father that in His plan there are no true endings, only everlasting beginnings."

I know Elder Uchtdorf is a modern day prophet, called of God to speak for Him, as are the other 11 prophets of the LDS Church.  And if a people ever needed to know what God was trying to tell them, it certainly is our society today!

If you are interested in learning more, see this link:  https://www.lds.org/

Like a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree...

                  “If you don't know your family's history, 

 then you don't know anything.

 You are a leaf that doesn't know it is part of a tree”

                                                                              -- Michael Crichton

Do you know who your great grandparents are? Or where your family originated from?  Do you know who sacrificed a comfortable life, or worked themselves to death, so that you, their descendants, could have a better life than they did?  Unless you have had an interest in family history, you probably don't. Most people of our time period, will leave this life never knowing who they really were because they are disconnected from their family beyond the grandparents they personally knew.

We are all part of God's family. We are His children. Earthly families are part of His design and plan for men --to be able to grow up in a circle of parents and other family members who care for and teach their children, so that each new generation can benefit from the lessons learned by the previous generations.  

Families are not just for this life - their relationship is meant to be eternal, meaning the blessing of being together can go beyond this life.  In fact, it is part of God's plan that each generation be LINKED to each of the generations before, in one long chain back to Adam.  And those chain links are welded through the sealing powers of the Priesthood.

Despite the breakdown in modern families, God is in charge of this world's final outcome.  His work will go forth.  He prepares people to be "cogs" in His work -- and I hope I am one of His cogs.

E. Clayton Wyand was one of those cogs. Clayton was born April 22, 1875 and, since his childhood days, he had a desire to know "who he was."  At age 18 he contracted spinal meningitis and became deaf for the rest of his life. After two years learning the mercantile business, he entered Maryland School for the Deaf in 1894. There he learned printing and prepared for college, later graduating from Gauladet National College for the Deaf. 

E. Clayton Wyand's passion, to know who his family was, led him to visit local libraries, areas his family had lived, and relatives far flung. He read countless old Family Bibles, gleaned newspaper articles, mined records from courthouses and examined every graveyard in which, perchance, there might be a stone of interest.  

The result was a comprehensive history of his family, his ancestors, and his extended cousins -- with names, dates AND PHOTOS, from the earliest German immigrant in 1743 to Clayton's living relatives in 1909.

As often happens, after all his work, Wyand's book was eventually forgotten.  In that time period, it wasn't easy to get publications advertised and out to everyone who might be interested in them.  But the work was not in vain. A copy of the book was preserved in a library and Google eBooks scanned and made it freely available to everyone through their online database.  

And that is where I found it:  A Brief History of the Andrew Putman (Buttman, Putnam), Christian Wyandt (Weyandt, Weygandt, Voint, Wyand) and Adam Snyder (Schneider) Families of Washington county, Maryland published in 1909.

What a joy it was to look through!  So many people, our family, who had lived, and died, had been forgotten, but were now found!  

This is where I can see God's hand was directing E. Clayton Wyand
 to preserve this important heritage,
and how God directed me to find it.

Driving to the hospital

During the winter months my parents live on the outskirts of St George where it is warm and sunny (most of the time) -- I and my siblings all live more than 5 hours away. Mom and Dad are in their mid 80s and lucky to still have each other. Mom's memory is slipping so Dad helps her with details.  Dad does all the driving.

But Dad developed pneumonia a few weeks ago.  He battled with cold and congestion for several days at home. But when he collapsed on the floor and was unable to get up, Mom had to get help. He wouldn't let her call an ambulance, so she ran to the neighbors.  Several of the men came to help her get Dad in the car, then she got in the driver's seat to take him to the hospital.

By that time it was dark.  The hospital is only 5 miles away, but you can either get there down a busy road or there is a shortcut around the hill.   Did I tell you Mom doesn't have great night vision? She decided to take the shortcut down a less busy road.

But after driving for what seemed like a long time, the paved road suddenly turned into a dirt road.  Mom hesitated. This didn't feel right.  Then Dad woke up enough to tell her to "keep going, it's not far from here."

The dirt road turned into a two-track path.

That's where God stepped in with someone to help them. A forest ranger was out on the roads...who knows why there! He found out where they were trying to go and then he drove ahead of them, leading the way back to the hospital where Dad was immediately hospitalized for several days.

Mom found out she had been heading 180 degrees, for a dozen miles, in the wrong direction from where she should have been going.

Thank goodness for that ranger!  And thank God for his tender care and watchful eye.

Not in the Way We Expected...

This is a memory from the past....5 1/2 years ago, to be exact.  But it illustrates how God's ways are not our ways.  AND YET, they are better because God loves us so much and wants the best for us -- even if we don't see it at the time.

It was July 2007.  My husband Steve wanted to retire early. We had been planning toward it most of our married life and it seemed that, by taking his pension and being frugal, our savings could support us for several years until he could get Social Security. We carefully mapped out a 30-year plan to make sure it would work, even if we lived to age 90, and we hoped to serve an LDS Mission as senior missionaries within a couple years.  The only hurdle we had to overcome was getting medical coverage, since Steve would be losing the coverage he had through his job.  He was 57.

It was a big decision, and we didn't take it lightly. We both fasted and prayed, several times over the course of several months and the decision to retire felt right to both of us.  I took out a private health insurance policy which Steve would be allowed join after a 9-month waiting period (due to a heart oblation surgery he had had the spring before). So with our plans in place we took the plunge.  He retired and we enjoyed a couple of wonderful months with time to do things we had been putting off -- being able to go camping in the middle of the week when there were no crowds, going to help our children when they moved or had a new baby, being able to help neighbors and friends as needed.

Then, just 3 months later, the bottom fell out of EVERYTHING!  The stock market took a drastic plunge and then fell, and fell and FELL down to a record low.  It was the Great Recession.  We lost half of our savings and couldn't afford to keep taking withdrawals.  We had to really cut back our expenditures and take on odd jobs wherever we could find them.  Our year supply of food really came in handy then!

When the 9-month medical waiting period was finally over, Steve went in to get a physical exam so he could be put on my medical insurance.  He was feeling fine. To our great surprise and horror, the doctors discovered that his heart had developed irregular beats, was slowing down as low as 30 bpm at night, and was stopping several times a day -- while Steve felt none of the symptoms. The sinus node in his heart (the battery-like portion that tells the heart to beat) was dying, quickly.

Surgery was scheduled to implant a pacemaker and defibrillator.  Steve was VERY reluctant to have the surgery done. He felt fine.  He couldn't believe there was anything major wrong with his heart since he couldn't feel the irregular beats or even the times it stopped.  He attributed the fall from his horse to other reasons.  It took both I and the doctor to convince him that pacemaker surgery needed to be done.  If not...the doctor said that one day Steve would go out to feed his horses, "and just wouldn't come back into the house."

Within just a few hours after the heart surgery, his defibrillator began going off.  Each time it was like being kicked in the chest by a horse, or suddenly whacked side the head by a 2x4.  The doctor explained that the defibrillator only goes off to save someone's life and shock their heart back into a regular rhythm. It had both of us scared. The doctor was able to give him some medicine that would "turn off his heart" a little to reduce the number of episodes but it wasn't enough.  In October 1998 Steve had an episode where the defibrillator went off 3 times in 5 minutes, each time throwing him to the ground.  Any one of the earlier episodes could have been his death, without the defibrillator but, if not, then the October episode definitely would have been his end.

After that the medicine was increased and changed to totally stop Steve's own heart from beating.  The pacemaker was the only thing keeping him alive. 

SO HOW WAS ALL THIS A BLESSING?  What about that answer we both got to our prayers about whether or not to retire early?

Steve berated himself often that he should have stayed working at his job.  But what if he hadn't retired?  I would have been a young widow.  Steve would NOT have gone to the doctor for that checkup because he didn't feel the need.  He would have stayed working until he died that summer.

Another blessing that came from it....because our children were grown, and I had more time, I did some investigation into medical studies about heart disease.  I discovered a group at the University of California in Berkeley doing studies on genetic heart disease.  Dr. Michael Zaragoza accepted our family as a case study.  Through my hobby in family history, I had come to realize there was a family trend for early heart disease deaths in his line.  In fact, all of Steve's maternal grandfathers had died at, or near, age 57 from "a bad heart."  But the disease was developing at younger ages in recent years (other than Steve).  His mother died at age 52.  His cousin died at age 45.  His 3 nephews died in their 30's.  Thanks to Dr. Zaragoza's research team, the gene was identified.  Everyone in the family, who wanted to be tested, was tested.  Now Dr Zaragoza's team is working on finding a cure....not just a "fix" but an actual cure.  It's amazing what can be done with genetic medicine now.  Soon we hope to have our family protected from any other sudden deaths due to heart disease.

We were blessed?  YES!  We went through bad times, but it was the best thing that could have happened for our family.   God loves us and was watching our for our family in ways we had not expected.

The Saratov Approach

Our eldest son serving a mission to Barcelona, Spain
(far left)

My husband and I had a chance to go to the movies this weekend and we chose to see The Saratov Approach - the true story of two 19 and 20-year-old LDS missionaries (Elder Propst and Elder Tuttle), serving in Russia, who were kidnapped and held for ransom back in March 1998.  They were beaten and threatened with death several times over the course of 5 days, while the kidnappers waited for what they hoped would be a large sum of money from either the LDS Church, the American government or the missionaries' families.  The climax came when the captors realized that they would not be getting any ransom money.

Our youngest son serving a mission in Ohio
(far right)

This was a powerful movie, sometimes very hard to watch.  As the parent of two boys who have served missions already, it especially hit home to me.  I felt my heart go to my stomach when Elder Propst's parents got the late-night call saying their son was kidnapped, and I couldn't stop the tears. I could only imagine the horror of that situation.

Everyone (but the kidnappers) knew that no money would be forthcoming.  If ransom was paid for those two missionaries, then every missionary in the world would then become the targets of evil people seeking a quick payout.

Watching the range of emotions the missionaries went through, from terror and fear, to acceptance, then to caring about the souls of their captors, was enthralling to watch.  In the end, the young missionaries accepted, and knew, that if or when they died, they would be okay.  God was in control.  Even the sacrifice of their lives would be worth it to save the lives of 50,000 other young missionaries (now 80,000+).

I also saw a parallel between the feelings God must have had when he sent his son Jesus Christ to atone for our sins and die on the cross, and those of the young elder's parents, who had the money to pay the ransom but could not. They needed to sacrifice their son for the greater good of so many others.

No greater love hath any man than this....

I highly recommend this movie.  It was very well made.

If you haven't seen it (it was released in October 2013), you can request that the movie theaters in your area bring it in.  Go to this website:   : http://bit.ly/SaratovDemandIt 

Answered! But not always in the way we had expected

This is a famous Christmas story, but it teaches a valuable moral. God DOES answer our prayers, but not always in the way we expect...

Once there were three trees on a hill in the woods. They were discussing their hopes and dreams when the first tree said, "Someday I hope to be a treasure chest. I could be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I could be decorated with intricate carving and everyone would see the beauty."

Then the second tree said, "Someday I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull."

Finally the third tree said, "I want to grow to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me."

After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, "This looks like a strong tree, I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter,"and he began cutting it down. The tree was happy, because he knew that the carpenter would make him into a treasure chest.

At the second tree the woodsman said, "This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the shipyard." The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship.

When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. One of the woodsmen said, "I don't need anything special from my tree, I'll take this one," and he cut it down.

When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay.

This was not at all what he had prayed for. The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark. The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams.

Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn. She gave birth and they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do. The tree could feel the importance of this event and knew that it had held the greatest treasure of all time.

Years later, a group of men got in the fishing boat made from the second tree. One of them was tired and went to sleep. While they were out on the water, a great storm arose and the tree didn't think it was strong enough to keep the men safe. The men woke the sleeping man, and He stood and said "Peace" and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings in its boat.

Finally, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill. When Sunday came, the tree came to realize that it was strong enough to stand at the top of the hill and be as close to God as was possible, because Jesus had been crucified on it.

The moral of this story is we don't always know what God's plans are for us. We just know that His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always best.