How Did It Keep From Exploding!

The Melted Battery Cable

               After unsuccessfully trying for a prolonged time to get Caramel, Mother's herd bull, back onto our place instead of the neighbor's pasture, I felt some discouragement. With a sense of failure, I walked to the old pickup to return to the house since I knew Mother would be concerned about where I was. Probably I drove a little too fast over the rocky, steep draw. When I reached the bottom of it, the pickup stopped dead still, with smoke coming from the right front side of the hood. I hopped out of the pickup, deciding it might be overheated, and trudged dejectedly to the house.

                After a couple of hours, I walked back and prayed as I drew closer to the stalled pickup. I thought to myself, Maybe it has to do with the battery.

                Upon reaching the 1990 Ford F-150, I popped the hood and noticed the battery cable was burned in two. Ignorance is bliss or downright foolish, but I knew the cable needed to be connected to the battery. I put them together, got in, turned the key, and it started. I slowly drove it to the house and parked it, deciding to limit its use until my brother-in-law evaluated it. I breathed a prayer of thanks to get it back to its shed. That had been important to Dad even after his stroke. No matter how old his pickup was, it needed to be sheltered.

                My brother-in-law has worked ER rooms with fatality cases. Daily as an ARNP, he sees patients with serious issues. He doesn’t get too excited because he has walked me calmly through emergencies with Mother and Dad. When he looked at the battery, he exclaimed, “How did this keep from exploding on you?”

                He proceeded to explain that hitting a rock had caused the power cable going to the wench to short out against the frame of the pickup and had grounded out the battery, which explained the melted battery cable post. More than once he shook his head and said, “I can’t believe the battery didn’t explode.”

                Many times, God protects us from serious injury. He protects us on so many levels, whether entering unwise relationships, making potentially detrimental financial decisions, traveling in dangerous territory, or 1,001 other scenarios. Only eternity will reveal how many times God dispatched His angels to protect His children.

                This week may we express thanksgiving to the Father who has saved us through our trust in the precious blood that Jesus willingly gave for us, knowing daily His protection envelops us.

A Verse for Meditation This Week:

For He shall give His angels charge over you,

To keep you in all your ways.

In their hands they shall bear you up,

Lest you dash your foot against a stone.

Psalm 91:11-12