Fresh Start Devotionals

Emergency It started out a lazy Saturday morning. All of the boxes were unpacked, but we still had much work to do after the move into our first home. After my first cup of coffee, I decided to hang the new doors between the kitchen and the den. We took out the sliding glass doors and were replacing them with some wooden ones. I didn’t want to take the chance of one of my small boys walking through the glass and getting hurt like my Dad had several years earlier. We had an industrial fire extinguisher on the wall next to the doors. This was a central location in the house, and we thought it was a good idea to have the extinguisher near the kitchen. We removed the doors, replaced the tracks and took the new doors out of the box. Now came the big moment: I was positioning the first door in its place, the whole family gathered around to see how it would look. I had some trouble fitting it into place. I applied pressure, and the door jumped out of the track and hit the fire extinguisher, which slipped from its holder and fell four feet onto my preschool son. Blood was everywhere. I dropped the door, snatched up my son, and sped to the hospital emergency room. I was in such a hurry that I left my wife behind. I knew I had to take him to someone who could help him. In that moment, nothing else mattered—not traffic laws, not money; the only thing that mattered was getting help for my son. We were doing our best to provide a safe environment for our son. We removed the glass doors and hung the fire extinguisher as safety measures. Yet our best efforts resulted in his injury. I’m grateful that God protected Stephen from our “protection.” Today, Stephen is sixteen years old and is just fine. However, every now and then he talks about the day Dad hit him with the fire extinguisher. He always laughs—I don’t. Jim L. Wilson, Fresh Start Devotionals (Fresno, CA: Willow City Press, 2009).