This really happened to my family on Christmas Eve 1975. This is the story as my dad told it to his church a few years ago. Enjoy and may you be touched by God's hand of protection and the miracles and provision we experienced.
In December 1975 our family lived on Lynn Lane in Decatur. A family friend, Mr. Slocum, had five rental houses on the street and we rented one of them. Earlier that year he decided to sell all the houses and offered the houses to the people who lived there and rented from him. We ended up buying our house and Mr. Slocum sold the remaining houses except one. The one house that did not sell was the one next door. It remained vacant.
My sister-in-law and brother-in-law, Lane and Barry Puckett, spent Christmas Eve with us and decided to spend the night so they could see our two daughters, Tiffany and Cheryl, on Christmas morning. Tiffany was four years old and Cheryl was two. The girls were very excited with Santa coming and all the presents under the tree.
Our house was still furnished in early marriage with our home’s centerpiece being the stereo. That night Lane and Barry slept on the sofa in the Living room, since that was the only place in the house where there was enough space to lie down.
It was an old house with floor furnaces to generate heat. The floor furnaces were nothing but a big gas burner that simply heated the air around it. The kids had been taught to steer clear of the metal grates on the floor. The metal would get hot enough to burn you if you happened to step on them while the burner was on.
At some point during the night a jacket fell onto the floor furnace next to the sofa. It was a cold Christmas Eve and the furnaces had come on. With the jacket laying on the furnace the heat was blocked, which kept the room from warming up and the furnace stayed on.
At 6:00 AM, my wife Ricki, who at the time was a heavy sleeper, woke up and smelled smoke. This was the first of many miracles that would take place. We were told later that smoke from a fire usually puts you to sleep, not wake you up. For some reason, Ricki woke up and saw a light coming from the Living Room. The light Ricki saw was the jacket at the end of the sofa on fire. Lane and Barry were sleeping on the sofa, totally unaware of what was happening at their feet.
Ricki woke me up. We grabbed the kids out of their beds, and woke Lane and Barry. Lane and Barry ran out the front door and the door closed behind them. Lane ran around to the back door and we literally threw both kids to her. She caught them, put them in the car, and Barry pushed the car out of the carport and out of harms way. Everything was happening real fast.
Ricki grabbed the phone and somehow it still worked (second miracle). She called the fire department, which was only about a hundred yards away. This was before you could dial 911 and we just happened to have the number for the fire department next to the phone. We knew most of the fireman because I often walked the kids over to a little store across from the fire station, and the girls would talk to the firemen.
I ran back inside to try to put out the fire. At that time the sofa was the only thing on fire. I grabbed the front door and when I opened it the added oxygen really got things cooking. The fire started running around the baseboards. Then the Christmas tree went up like a blowtorch. I was smart enough to get out of the house quickly. I ran out the back door and grabbed a water hose to try to put out the fire.
The windows started blowing out and the house was engulfed in flames about the time the Fire Department got there. We had escaped with just the clothes we were wearing – pajamas and a pair of jeans.
The firemen started putting out the fire, but it burned through the roof before they brought it under control. All of this happened in just a matter of minutes. Ricki took the kids to a neighbor’s house to get them away from everything that was going on. I remember sitting down in the front yard and watching every material possession I owned literally go up in smoke.
The firemen took the mass of melted plastic and burned packages that had been our Christmas presents, and shoveled it out the picture window. I just sat there for the longest time and probably said a prayer or two, but I don’t really remember. It was one of those desperation prayers. I had never really prayed that much, just when there was something I felt like I couldn’t control. I do remember feeling very defeated – like I had lost everything. I didn’t have much hope or Christmas spirit at that point.
As the firemen mopped up, my mother’s next door neighbor drove up. He was listening to the police scanner and had heard about the fire. He lived a short distance away and decided to drive over to see the fire, not realizing it was me and my family. We talked to him and asked him to go back, tell my mother that everybody was OK, and we would be at her house shortly (we had already called her from our neighbor’s house to tell her about the house burning).
Well, he had a CB radio and started talking about how the kids lost all the toys Santa had brought them. All the gifts that were under the tree were destroyed, along with most everything we had in the world. All our furniture, clothes, stereo equipment, and everything else we had, was in that big pile of rubble in the front yard.
Eventually a fireman told me and Ricki it was safe enough for us to go inside. I got up, and as we walked in the back door we saw an amazing sight in the Dining Room. We had always put out a Nativity scene, and this particular year the kids had put together one of those paper nativity scenes. You punch the figures out of a piece of paper and tab A fits into slot A, etc. The wise men looked like little cones.
Everything was charred and covered in soot except this little Nativity scene. It was as perfect as the day we put it together. There was no soot, no burns, no bent edges. Not three feet away, the curtains had burned completely off the windows, and the glass in the windows had shattered.
God showed us His presence right there, and let us know who was in control. Seeing that baby Jesus in His paper manger with destruction everywhere else gave us hope.
Now this Christmas story could end right here and be a Christmas miracle. Ricki woke up unexpectedly, everybody got out of the house safely, there were no injuries (I suffered a burn on my thumb, but I didn’t notice until I washed my hands), and that Nativity scene sitting there untouched – What a miracle! But God had just started working, and we were in store for an avalanche of Christmas miracles.
As we drove to my mother’s house to regroup, and figure out what we would do (at the time, we were so young and naïve we didn’t know we had insurance) something incredible was happening. We got to my mother’s home and as I was getting ready to sit by myself and feel real sad about what had happened, some guy drives up in a pickup truck with a fully decorated Christmas tree.
He said his handle (we had no idea that was CB talk for his nickname) was Old Yeller, and he thought the tree would help cheer us up. It looked like he just picked it up from his living room and brought it over. He said they were getting some things together for us and needed the kid’s ages and everybody’s sizes. It was about ten or eleven o’clock by that time.
The next thing that showed up was a fully dressed turkey. Now, I don’t know much about cooking, but I do know it takes several hours for a turkey to cook, especially one this size. It was huge. Whoever’s table it came off of had a lot of people they were going to have to do some explaining to as to why their Christmas feast had suddenly disappeared. It was still warm and was obviously some family’s meal.
People we didn’t know, and never did learn their real names, heard about our situation through the CB radio and gave us their Christmas. One lady brought a wrapped gift that she said was left over after they had opened all their presents. I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I do remember it was one of the toys Tiffany had asked Santa for.
Everybody in our family received a wrapped gift that day and it wasn’t just some used item someone had taken and wrapped up. It was all brand new stuff, and again, it was obvious it was somebody’s present that they had received that morning. The kids ended up getting everything they had on their Christmas lists.
You have to remember this was 33 years ago and at the time everything closed on Christmas day, including convenience stores and gas stations. Everything we received was bought prior to that day. Along with the gifts, they even gave us $400.00 in cash and apologized because it wasn’t more.
That afternoon the manager from Lionel Play World (today’s Toys R Us) called, and said he had heard about the fire and the kids. He was opening his store for us to come in and get the kid’s some toys. Then the manager from Rich’s at South DeKalb mall called, and said he was opening the store for us to come by and get jackets, clothes, anything we might need.
I went to Lionel and Ricki headed to Rich’s. We each walked through a huge department store that was completely empty of people, and had been opened solely for my family. The blessings we received that day were absolutely incredible and just a small example of the Grace Of Jesus Christ.
I have no idea how many people were involved in helping us that Christmas, but I did get an opportunity to meet the Lady they called “Mama Wolf”. She was the person my mother’s neighbor called on the radio on the way back to his house that morning. She was an elderly shut-in whose hobby was the CB radio. I believe to this day she was an angel.
To finish the story, Mr. Slocum came by that evening and gave us the keys to the house next door. He had heard about the fire and figured we might need somewhere to stay while they rebuilt our house. What better way to keep an eye on the construction than to be living next door. For some reason, that was the only house he had not sold.
We also discovered we had insurance. It was one of those papers we signed at closing when we bought the house. The house was rebuilt, and three months later we moved back into our home. This time we had a real furnace.
As Christmas day 1975 finally ended we had shelter, food, clothes, furniture, and most of all, my family. Even though that morning, everything looked dark and gloomy, the Lord provided everything we needed. The love and compassion that was shown to us that day is still unbelievable.
At the time we were not born again believers. Ricki and I both believed in God, and believed in Jesus. We attended church on all the important days like Easter and Christmas. We were married in a church by a minister, and had the kids christened at the right time, and said all the right things when we did go to church.
Our kids are now grown and the fire is a memory but every Christmas all those memories come flooding back. It was several years before we gave our lives completely and totally to Jesus. But Jesus was right there with us every step of the way. God poured out His blessing that day and continues to bless us each and every day.
WE SERVE AN AWESOME GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
