My Only Begotten Son

There is nothing more alarming than to wake up to the frantic urgings of a little Korean yelling my name through the windows in the wee hours of the morning. Well, it is mid-day to her, but 6 a.m. is still wee to me. “Kelly!! Kelly!! Tim!!! Kelly!! Wake up!” In my semi-conscious stupor, I wondered why she could be hollering in my windows, surely on a hunt for someone to cut her hair or put a band-aid on her finger. But that only lasted for a second until the fog was cleared a little and I sensed danger in her voice. “What’s wrong?” I hollered through our slatted windows. “There is fire coming from your house!” I didn’t wait to hear which room, but leapt out of bed and darted off to find the culprit. I burst into the girls’ room, all was well. Sprinting across the living room, I threw my weight against Colin’s closed door and found my son lying in bed, three feet from his burning desk. The air was thick with black smoke, which had risen through the night as his candle burned down to the desk, sometime igniting the plastic casing that he had concocted, and moving over to slowly incinerate the Rubik’s cube which was still aflame. As soon as I yelled his name, he awoke and cried out in fear, instantly aware of the fire. Seeing that the fire was not spreading, I opened Col’s curtains and windows to allow the smoke to escape. Tim was quick on my heels, armed with a towel to extinguish the flames. Waiting outside of the window, our Korean fire alarm asked what had happened. Later I will make her some banana bread to show my gratitude for her saving my son’s life.
The commotion awoke Schyler, who is a natural morning person, and was chipper and inquisitive. “What happened? Did Col’s room catch on fire?” Not a hint of fear in her voice as Tim and I collapsed in a heap in the living room. After 3 minutes in the smoke-filled room, Tim’ lungs were staging a revolt, and my knees were Jello. I could feel my heart pumping wildly, trying to restore order in the midst of “fight or flight.” But Colin sat quietly, hugging his knees to his chest. No coughing, no crying, just sitting. How many hours had he been inhaling black plastic fumes? After turning off the generator, we went to bed around eleven, seven hours before my friend’s wake-up call. Had he been inhaling fumes for many hours? I kicked into nurse mode, assessing my son for signs of respiratory distress, or any other distress for that matter: cardiac, urinary, psychological, financial, spiritual, or endocrine. Zip. Zilch, Nada. Perfect. He admitted that he had been afraid when he woke up, engulfed in smoke, and his mother and father ranting. But he was not coughing and gasping for air in his closed room. His quietness was an uncommon mixture of fear and peace. Recovering on couches in the living room, I knew that the Lord had protected His boy, and I was compelled to break into a prayer of thanksgiving. Sometimes it is easy to spot a miracle, especially when my own Shadrach, or Meshack, or Abednego is sitting next to me, without even a wiff of smoke on his clothes. Thank you, Lord!