This past Wednesday morning, I woke to a robotic voice saying "Carbon Monoxide has been detected. Carbon Monoxide has been detected." I have never heard this before but clearly knew where it was coming from....the hallway that connects all of our bedrooms. I frantically woke up Tony, dialed 911, and hurried the kids to quickly get up and throw on some clothes. As we hurried from the house, Tony kept insisting that surely it must be that the batteries needed to be changed. I kept insisting that that couldn't be right. We shuttled the kids into the truck and drove away from the house until the fire department arrived.
Two trucks pulled up our street about 10 minutes or so later. They went into the house...Tony followed thinking surely they'd say everything was fine and that we could go back in. To our dismay, they went back to the trucks but not to go back to the firehouse....instead, they pulled out a few large fans, opened the front doors and windows of our house so that they could suck the carbon monoxide poisoning out of our home.
Even to this day, I sit in awe in tears that God spared our lives. He must still have more for our family to do. Here's the ridiculous part...I almost didn't buy carbon monoxide detectors for our home. I balked at the prices and then finally told myself to stop complaining that my family was worth the 30 bucks for the detectors.....I mean, hey, we drop $30+ dollars at a restaurant. This was clearly one of the best investments of my lifetime. You see...in order for this particular detector to go off, the deadly gas had to pass through several levels and vents of our home....so to me, that said that the gas level was intense. The firefighters agreed. The furnace was immediately shutdown and we've been in a cold house every since that morning....bundled up with space heaters. Even still, I don't complain because even this cold house has sensitized me to those who are homeless and bear this cold weather every day/night. So much so, Tony and I have talked about starting to collect blankets to give out.
You know, I do believe that the enemy had a plan to knock my family out of here in one big swoop but so glad that God has our back and I cling to one piece of Isaiah 54:17 that says "no weapon formed against you shall prosper".
I'm so glad to be still sitting at my desk to type and share this story with you. Afterall, instead of reading this blog post, you could be reading the following news article...."Family of Four Dies While Sleeping Because they Didn't Have Carbon Monoxide Detectors". Please don't let that be your family's fate. Go out TODAY and get one or two for your home and if you already have one please go and test it right now.
Love y'all! (BTW: A new furnace is scheduled to be installed tomorrow and man when it does, I'll have a whole new appreciation for the privilege of central heating.)
