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The Day I Almost Went Up In Flames

By Bonnie Gray • September 10, 2009 • 9 Comments

There was nothing special about this day in particular.  I woke up with my usual breakfast fare of toast and eggs.  The hours chugged along, as I put in a day’s worth of work.  As I turned the corner in the late afternoon, I was about to slide into homebase of evening-after-the-kids-are-in-bed.

Standing between me and serenity, however, was dinner.  Without thinking about it much, I turned the dial on the right burner, as I walked over to grab my sautee pan.  Hubby often wonders why I turn on the burner before placing the pans on the stovetop.

It’s called efficiency. By the time the coils turn red, I would’ve been back with the pan.  Dude, I just shaved off a minute from my cooking time!

Except this time, I didn’t return with my pan.  I decided to open the fridge door and grab a bag of broccoli.

I proceeded to the sink area and pulled my cutting board out and started chopping away.

I completely forgot the burner was turned on.  Red hot.

Now, this may not be any cause for alarm, other than doing the palm-to-forehead routine a few minutes after feeling the heat on my back.

This time, it wasn’t heat I was feeling.

“Mommy!  Our house is on fire!”  TJ screamed.

With a shot of dread, I turned around to behold a sight I have never seen coming from my electric stovetop.  Flames.

It wasn’t as bad as a scene from Backdraft, but it was bigger than the ones you see hovering over a birthday cake.

Put it this way: my burner resembled the barbecue grill.  On Labor Day, when it was being fired up.

I turned on the wrong burner!

On top of that red hot burner laid my waiting-to-be put away cookie sheet.  Now, it burst aflame.

My first thought was, OMG!  Hubby is going to KILL me!

My second thought (which was much more productive) was WATER!

I lunged for my bowl of broccoli-filled water and dumped it over the burning cookie sheet.

As I opened all the windows in the house to do away with the evidence (futile, I know), three year old TJ followed me from room to room, lecturing “Mommy, you really should be more careful!  You almost burned our house down!”cookiesheet burnt:  Thank God for close calls

I didn’t even hardly hear him.

I only had one thought running through my mind:

Thank you, God.

I know I take so much of God’s protection for granted.  I’m sure I don’t even know half of the calamities He’s saved me from.  Well, in my case, maybe more than half.

When I get to heaven and I see all the videos that God’s been taking of His days watching over me, I’m gonna be thanking God up and down those gold laid streets.

Thank God for close calls, huh?

What have been some close calls you’ve had?

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9 Comments

  • Reply Heather Sunseri September 10, 2009 at 2:24 am

    Wow, Bonnie! That was a close call! I’m glad everything turned out all right!

    The only close call I can think of at this moment was the time I took an onramp to the interstate a little too fast on wet roads. My car spun out of control doing a 360 degree turn at a very fast speed. When my car finally stopped, I sat white-knuckled in a ditch. My driver-side window was inches from a steel electric pole. I was lucky my car stopped short of the pole, and I was lucky no other vehicles were in front of me or behind me.

    Have a great Thursday!

  • Reply Bridget Chumbley September 10, 2009 at 8:26 am

    I’m so happy to hear things turned out ok. Those situations are terrifying (even though we worry about the funny things like…hubby is going to kill me), but they are also a reminder that God is looking out for us.
    You weren’t kidding when you said it was a rough day… 🙂

  • Reply Anne Lang Bundy September 10, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Last night I was walking through a church hallway, about to pass by one of the men. He had his back to me, and as he spoke to someone he suddenly threw his arm out to emphasize his words. He came within inches of punching me, and he’s big enough he could have injured me.

    Yours was a big save, mine was little. But I see the hand of God in both, and in a million other places. I praise Him for His presence and protection.

  • Reply Jennifer @ Getting Down With Jesus September 10, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Whew! That was a close one. My close call was my accident in January. My all accounts, it should have been a fatality. But I survived with relatively minor injuries. So grateful for life — and in fact, grateful for the accident, as it has brought me closer to the Lord.

  • Reply Doug Spurling September 10, 2009 at 9:27 pm

    Thank God is right. There have been many. I hear one buzzing past my head. Back in the day when I thought I was a rodeo cowboy. I drew a horse named Satan at a rodeo in Oklahoma. Cole Black. He went straight out of the shoots three jumps turned hard right toward the fence two more jumps and then a hard left which sat me sideways. I was riding horizontal watching steel fence posts buried in concrete buzz by inches from my head. I can still hear them whizzing by inches from my head. Before he hit the fence on the far end of the arena he swayed into the arena away from the fence,I managed to free my hand and bite the dirt. That was better than decapitation I figured. I was too dumb to thank God then. So I do it now. Thank you.

  • Reply Bonnie Gray September 10, 2009 at 11:34 pm

    @Heather: That was definitely a close call! I couldn’t help but grip the sides of my chair reading your tale! Thank God!
    @Bridget: oh, that wasn’t even the beginning of it!… terrifying reminders.. interesting string of words.. hmm.. God uses everything, doesn’t He?
    @Anne: oh, yours was a big save. a black eye at best, at worse, a sprained nose and injured eye sight! Wonderful you see God’s hand in big and small. No wonder you have praise in your words!
    @Jennifer: Wow. I cannot imagine what great change that has brought you. If you have written a post about it, would you mind sharing it here? Just post the url in the comments. So glad your call was *close*, not fatal!
    @Doug: A rodeo cowboy!?! Doug, you are a man of many tales. And nine lives, perhaps?! I loved reading your story. LOL. It’s a prime candidate for a post, bro!

  • Reply Lynn Mosher September 16, 2009 at 3:43 pm

    Wow! So glad everything turned out okay. I turn the burner on to warm it up also. I think I’ll be a lot more careful from now on. I keep a fire extinguisher in the kitchen…just in case! Be blessed!

  • Reply Bonnie Gray September 16, 2009 at 3:52 pm

    @Lynn: I forgot I had an extinguisher too, in my panic. Good reminder! Bless ya’ right back! 🙂

  • Reply cathleen johnson February 17, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    I can so identify with your story! I was cooking on the stove and went about doing something that had caught my attention, when our dog started BARKING. As I ran to the kitchen, smoke was billowing out into the hallway. The eggs in the pan were not only hard boiled, they were burnt through the shell! I put the pan outside in the snow until it cooled off. You are right about opening the windows. I did the doors, too, but my hubby still noticed when he came home from work. I am so glad He was watching out for me and had my dog alert me.

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