When I was five years old my parents bought a farm, and I began to learn about living in the country.
The fences around the perimeter of the property (91 acres) were old and needed to be replaced. Dad bought posts and wire, and then built a large sled to carry the posts to the far edge of the property. We did not have a tractor, so he loaded the posts and wire onto the sled and hitched the sled up to our team of horses. My brother Dale and I went with him and rode on the horses. Since I was so little Dad tucked my legs under the straps of the harness, and I held onto the "hames" at the top of the horse's collar.
The back part of our land had not been cleared... and brush and rocks covered the area, so where we were going was not smooth ground. We started out just fine. Dad stood on the sled and dropped the posts along the old fence line, and it seemed like this plan was going to work well. But we could not have anticipated what was going to happen next. Something startled the horses and they took off running.
My brother was thrown off of his horse and landed on his back in some brush. I wasn't thrown off, but my head was beating up and down on a metal plate between the hames on the horse's collar. My dad was on the sled and was desperately trying to get the team back under control when the sled hit a rock, breaking a hole in it, and dad's leg went down through the hole and was dragging underneath. Even so, he somehow managed to bring the team to a stop.
As I look back at this event, I don't have any doubt that God was watching over the three of us. None of us had even a broken bone. Surely His angels were all around us that day. God was so faithful to watch over us...
"He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him, and honour him."
Psalm 91:15 KJV
© 2012 Arlene Schwartzkopf