Protection

Yesterday when the painter was spray-painting the barn walls, his aluminum ladder slipped (with him on it) and ended up falling against (bouncing off) a main power line. At the time, we knew nothing of this incident – and yet within 20 minutes I discovered there was no electricity in the house.

To make a long story short, Duke Energy remedied the problem lickety-split, and then came out to the house to talk to us. The Duke representative said one of THEIR main breakers had flipped. After we got the all facts straight, he said it probably flipped at the exact moment the ladder hit the wire. According to him, the painter could/should have been shocked/burned/killed, but in reality he didn’t feel a thing. The Duke fella just shook his head – “He’s only lucky guy” – and told us about another similar incident when a man was burned (killed); his body charred before anyone could shut off the power to rescue him. In the opinion of the Duke guy, the timing of the breaker must have been perfect, in a split-second kind of way.

Earlier Fritz and I had a conversation with the painter: a black man from South Carolina, 46 years old, who has been painting barns for 26 years. It is brutal work, and yet that’s all he’s ever known. In the context of talking about the dangers of his job, he said he prayed a lot. Based on yesterday’s experience, I now know more about the depth behind that confession. Not only was he protected through the ladder and wire experience, but quite a few hours before that happened, the ladder’s feet slid on mud and he “thought it was all over” – but was able to catch himself with one hand on two-story-high window trim and wrestle the ladder back to an upright position with his legs. At the end of the day, when he was walking around on the steep-pitched roof with no harness or rope, spray-painting the roof panels, he seemed very vulnerable to a potential accident - but finished without incident.

God truly IS faithful to His own.