Pam Padgett ... teacher
This week, I was reminded of how God helped me in a frightening and dangerous
situation several years ago.
It had been extremely cold for several days,
and the lake at the park near my home was frozen over. I took my dog for a
walk around the lake.When this dog saw birds flying overhead, it would
often run after them. On this particular day, the dog was running after
some birds, but then the birds started flying over the lake, with the dog
following and ignoring my calls for it to come back to shore. When about 60
feet from shore, the ice broke under the dog and it fell into the freezing
water. The dog tried to pull itself up on the ice again and again, but the
ice kept breaking under it. Finally the dog was too cold and tired to try
any more. I had been calling for help, but no one was around to hear
me.
Then I started calling out to God. Suddenly, I found myself throwing
my coat aside and running across the ice as quickly as possible. This was
not a conscious decision I made ... I just found myself doing it as soon as I called out to God. When I got within about 10 feet of the dog, the
ice broke under me, and I fell into the water. But the water was
shallow enough in that area that I could touch the bottom of the lake, and get enough stability to break through the ice with my arms, making
my way to the dog. After pulling the dog onto some solid ice, she ran
back to shore, and I was also able to get back to shore. We were both cold, but fine.
Later I was telling Linda Moore about this. When I
told her how, when the ice broke under me, it was such a relief to be able
to touch the bottom of the lake with my feet since I had no idea how deep
the water was, she replied "But God knew".