10 December 2016

1 Samuel 2:1

Someone who feels blessed may often tell others “The Lord has blessed me! He is a rock who knows all I have done and has blessed me!”

I often rejoice as I recognize how very blessed I have been. Once I was saved from  great danger in a close accident, and it was not my doing that saved me, but surely the Holy Spirit.

I was working in an office that was in a former factory building when a sudden severe stomach ache in the morning sent me home at noon. I knew I could not return to work that afternoon, so my desk beside the huge window was left empty, my writing materials still on top and the chair pushed close. The afternoon passed.

When I went to work the next morning I was shown great shards of glass all over my desk and chair and also on the floor. A big rock was on my desk, amidst all the glass pieces. Workers in my department  told me the story: A group of angry people on strike against the company had gathered outside in the afternoon, yelling and threatening. Someone had thrown the heavy round rock, like a soft ball or cabbage in size, right through the second floor  window beside my desk, and the window shattered explosively.  I could have been terribly injured by the rock and the glass but thanks to my morning stomach ache, I was not at my desk.

Feeling humble and blessed I looked up toward the ceiling and said,“Thank you, God, thank you!” Not until later did I think about the 5 or 6 co-workers around me, and then I was glad I had given thanks audibly among them. This happened nearly 70 years ago but I have never forgotten that powerful event and the sense of blessing which I felt.