Faith
in a Snowdrift
by Jean Easley
An evangelist's life was never easy in those
days, but probably was it never any more difficult than during the
rationing of World War II. Cross-country
travel was reserved mostly for commercial transporters and the wealthy.
But Brother and Sister Everett Thompson lived by faith.
Their old '36 Chevy would take them from meeting to meeting and
home again in spite of the fact or maybe because of the fact that they had
more prayers than money. In
the leanness of the time, it was not at all unusual for one to be down to
his last few coins. It was
certain that they were not in the ministry for the money.
The year was 1943, and the Thompsons had held
some good meetings in northwest
Poor families couldn't buy tires in those days
because of the war, so they improvised with every kind of patch and boot
you could think of (and some you couldn't) to keep the car going.
Still, every so often there would be another flat tire.
Patches were cut from old tires and were many times bolted to the
flat on either side of a hole to form a bridge over the hole.
By re-inflating the tube inside, you were good for a few more
miles, though the ride was a bumpy one.
As they drove toward home, the temperature
dropped and the storm met them head on.
The snow began to blow harder and harder.
The blizzard quickly created drift after drift of snow several feet
high across the highway. Traffic
thinned out until the Thompsons found themselves quite alone in the
snowstorm on one of the worst stretches of the eastern
As though the storm were not bad enough, the
engine suddenly died. It just
quit. Try as he might and even
with setting pieces of rubber on fire to keep himself warm as he worked
under the hood of the car, Bro. Thompson could not nudge that engine to
life again. It was just dead.
No amount of patching could solve this problem.
Back in the car, mother and baby were cold,
too. As darkness approached,
the prospects of spending the night here were overwhelming.
What were they going to do? As
he contemplated how to keep the car warmer for his family, Bro. Thompson
remembered the candles.
At home while preparing for the journey, the
evangelist had requested his wife to pack some candles in their things
just in case they were needed at some of the places where they would be
staying. Most homes had
kerosene lanterns, but there were not always enough lamps to accommodate
an entire household at the same time.
Thus, a few 12-inch candles might just come in handy along the way.
So, Sis. Thompson had dutifully packed five of them, which seemed
quite a surplus at the time.
Now, the candles came out of the trunk along
with a tin coffee cup. By
cutting the candles one by one into three or four-inch segments and fixing
them to the inside bottom of the cup with a little melted wax, the family
could finally have a little heat. In
fact, that burning, solitary candle provided enough heat inside that air
tight automobile that father, mother, and baby were able to survive that
terrible blizzard all night and far into the following day as the snow
continued to fall and winds continued to blow.
One flickering flame of a little piece of candle in their world of
darkness, stranded, all alone except for one another and the Lord…
One little flame of a candle, provided in advance by the hand of
the Almighty, was their key to survival.
By noon the next day, only one small piece of
candle remained. Though they
didn't know how, the Thompsons realized that they must find help soon.
About that time Bro. Thompson detected the
seeming explosion of a snowdrift far down the highway.
Then another exploded sending wafts of snow hurling into the wind.
A big, black Cadillac was taking down one drift, then another.
It soon stopped next to the little snow-covered Chevy.
The driver and three passengers were headed for Hugo.
When the man asked Bro. Thompson his state, he
anxiously told him that he had a woman and a child in the car and that
they had been there since mid-day the day before.
He asked if the stranger might help him get his wife and child to
Hugo to get help. The man
waved a friendly hand to Sis. Thompson and the baby and motioning toward
the car said, "Get outta there!"
Faces blackened by soot from the all-night candle burning, mama and
baby happily emerged from the Chevy.
A less powerful automobile would not have been
able to get through the huge snowdrifts back to Hugo, and even the big
Caddy finally encountered one that was too much for it.
When it became stuck fast, the three big male passengers got out
and pushed it out of the snowdrift, thus completing a wonderful rescue by
a rich man with a big, black Cadillac and his three companions.
In the safety and warmth of the hotel that
night, the family waited for daybreak when someone would be able to go out
with them and repair their disabled car.
Mother Nature had not been very nice, but how good the real true
God had been! How merciful and
loving and kind!
Bro. Thompson said, "We don't like to go through these things, but God uses them later to take us through the hard times we encounter along life's way. Many times our faith was strengthened when we remembered how God brought us through that snowstorm and that if He did it then, He could do it again."
COPYRIGHT REPRODUCTION LIMITATIONS: This data file is the sole property of Gene Easley. It may not be altered or edited in any way. It may be reproduced only in its entirety for circulation as "freeware," without charge. All reproductions of this data file must contain the copyright notice (i.e., "Copyright (C) 2006 by Gene Easley"). This data file may not be used without the permission of Gene Easley for resale or the enhancement of any other product sold. This includes all of its content with the exception of a few brief quotations. Please give the following source credit: Copyright (C) 2006 by Gene Easley, Alamo, Texas.
