The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Quentin Peterson
Do miracles still happen today? And if they do, what do they look like?
I suppose it is in a person’s perspective most of the time, unless it is seen by hundreds and there are pictures for proof!
Tuesday afternoon, my brother Pat had received a call or two saying “Sorry to hear that your place up town is burning!”
The place is what we named “Grace”; where we meet for coffee each morning and have Bible studies on Wednesday mornings each week. We pray a lot there and talk to many about the Lord and how to deal with an upside-down world right now.
Pat’s answer to the calls were “What are you talking about, I just left there a few moments ago!” He stepped outside his door and he said it looked like half the town was burning. He went up at a distance and called me to say the body shop next to us was burning and ours will burn shortly because it is covered in flames.
I told him to stay out, it isn’t worth your life to try to save anything, because a body shop has oxygen tanks and other propellants that will blow like a bomb.
He sent a picture and ‘wow’, it was a raging inferno.
My wife asked what the call was about and I choked up with tears trying to tell her. I don’t know why, except that so much has happened in the past year that my soul and heart are still compromised.
I didn’t stop and pray for the Lord to save ‘Grace’ and I don’t honestly know why?
I did praise Him afterward and have for many days for showing up and providing such wonderful opportunity to witness! I didn’t care about anything in our place, just that no one gets injured.
Some would freak out and rush in trying to save any and everything, or think “someone’s going to pay big” and “what can we get out of this?”
Honestly, after losing so much last year, nothing is very important in this world anymore as far as ‘things’ are concerned.
Our building sets ten feet from this body shop and the wind was in the north blowing toward our place.
The ambulance building sets to the north more than a hundred feet and the siding melted off of it from the heat.
A car setting around twenty feet from the building had the side burnt off from the heat.
“Grace”, has two vinyl windows with mesh screens, one with an air-conditioner in it fins open and foam sides to keep bugs out.
Boxes with bee frames in wax were on the very edge of the porch in the blazing fire, as were bunches of tied up onions hanging there drying, and a bird feeder on a shepherd’s hook that is plastic between the buildings, and a sparrow’s nest in the gutter there too!
The miracle?
Well, the plastic didn’t melt or warp, the windows and screens didn’t melt or catch fire, the foam in the air conditioner remains untouched, the sparrow nest, the onions not singed, the wax in the frames not melted and no smell of smoke in our building.
When checked for hot spots when the fire was finally being contained, ‘Grace’ was cool inside and the walls cold enough the detection equipment would not register. Vinyl will combust at 600 degrees.
What can I see? The Lord placing His Mighty hand between the flames and ‘Grace” and saying “No!”
Hard to believe I suppose, but you are more than welcome to look for yourself, everything is still in place.
Now why? Well, at first, I felt it might be because we have bible studies there, and good is coming from it.
Then I thought “I’m boasting”. Then I felt the same as Pat; that the Spirit may be seeing if we will testify of Him bringing a miracle, or just claim “that was lucky?”
Then it may be that the Lord is trying to capture the communities around here’s attention because it is time for people to know Him? Perhaps it’s all three, or none; perhaps the Lord just wanted to see if anyone would notice Him in all of this?
There was several miracles Tuesday. I know ‘Grace’ being saved is one, no earthly explanations. The second is no one was injured, because it could have gotten so ugly, so quick.
The third is seeing the community and surrounding communities come together for one another when things got serious!
The fourth, well, it’s coming because I and others have seen eyes wide open trying to process what they know was impossible, so now it’s time to pray!
My brother and I are not favored; honestly, we didn’t deserve to have this miracle, but we know what we really deserve!
But God is good! Stop in and have a cup of coffee sometime and we can talk about this and more!
In our Savior who never fails,
Quentin Peterson