God Knew

Whew. I'm still a little shaky at the thought...with the knowing that some wires had been burning in our house Monday. But here's the full story...


Monday morning I came downstairs with the kids for breakfast. I can't remember whether I smelled something stinky in the kitchen or after I had opened the door to the basement to get something done there. Regardless, it totally reeked...kind of like the smell of burning rubber. Our smoke alarms weren't going off (and I double checked the one in the basement to make sure it was working...it was), but just to be on the safe side, I turned off the furnace (which was running at the time) - we had just had work done on it, and my first thought is that maybe something got loose or something while it was being fixed.
So I called the furnace company and tried to get back into the breakfast routine, but was still bothered by the yet unidentified source of the smell. I checked the basement a couple of time to be sure I was seeing any smoke or further evidence of the odor. But God kept reminding of this family and how Lynn (the mom) kept hearing a smoke alarm going off but didn't see any evidence of smoke or fire - until it was too late and their entire house burned down (she tells about it in much more detail on her blog). And as I was eating breakfast, God kept nudging me to call the fire department and kept bringing the thought to mind that it could be burning wires.

Finally, I gave into the Spirit's promptings and called our fire department. A couple fire fighters came out and checked the house. Though they too could smell the odor, their CO meter didn't register anything and they couldn't identify what might have been the cause. I know I mentioned a couple times how I felt the need to call specifically because I've heard of homes that have caught on fire because of wiring in the walls. But the fire fighters didn't seem to think this was a strong possibility. Since everything seemed to check out, they departed.

After they left, I went back down to the basement to turn off the lights and noticed our dryer had stopped mid-cycle (though the knob was almost to the off position which is probably why I didn't notice this at first). Remembering Dave had put a load in just before he left, I figured it was the dryer that went on the fritz and was the cause of the smell. Hence a call to our appliance repairman. After describing the odor, etc, he thought it might have been the dryer's motor that went.

Anyway, for various reasons, it wasn't until today that our repairman came out to take a look at the dryer. Turns out it is excellent working condition.

The problem was with our circuit-breaker - made by the Federal Pacific company decades ago. Our repairman said these type of circuit-breakers are known to cause entire houses to burn down and this one should be ripped out ASAP. Scary, huh?

We had known something about our electrical system was not up to code based on past inspections, but had been (almost 7 years) lazy in doing anything about it.

What is overwhelming me right now is thinking how God intervened, how God knew. He told me to call the fire department, He reminded me about Lynn's story and electrical wire fires and He must have intervened to prevent a fire because there's no other explanation as to why wires that had started to burn didn't end up causeing a fire. Some people may say we were lucky or maybe they'll find a "natural" explanation as to why a fire didn't occur, but I don't believe in luck, I believe in Jesus. God stood in the gap for us.

The moral of this story...if someone tells you to update your electrical system, do it. Immediately. If God tells you to call the fire department or police or a doctor or go to the hospital even if it doesn't seem like an emergency do it. If you don't have a peace about something and God keeps bring a specific image or phrase to mind - tune in, listen up and obey. And pray. Over all things God brings into your life...your house, car, appliances :), your friends, your loved ones, your life.
 
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.  (1 Timothy 1:17 NKJV, emphasis mine)