A Very Scary Incident

We often refer to Isaac as our "little engineer." Since he was very young, he has always been fascinated with learning how things work. When he was a toddler, if you gave him a car or truck he didn't immediately start pushing it around and saying "Vroom, vroom." Instead, he would flip it over and check out how all the wheels worked with a very intent look on his face. When we go to a swimming pool, he is more interested in how the "bug trappers" work than he is in swimming. He loves tools and gears. Overall, he is just a very mechanically-minded child with an insatiable curiousity for figuring things out. His curiousity is usually something that we view to be very positive, but this past weekend it almost killed him.

On Saturday, Luke had spent the morning changing the oil in our vehicles and cleaning our garage. Isaac had been down there with him for quite a while, because (of course!) he had been interested in watching and helping his daddy. After Luke was done, he came in to clean up because he was getting ready to drive over to a friend's house who needed some help fixing his truck. Once Luke was cleaned up and ready to go, he went out to the garage and climbed in the Yukon. He was getting ready to leave when he remembered he had to get something from the office. So he got out, retrieved whatever he needed from the office and then yelled upstairs to me, "Honey, I'm heading out now." I responded, "Okay--is Isaac still down there with you?" He said, "I don't know--I'll find him real quick." He started calling for Isaac. All of a sudden, Isaac pops out from underneath the Yukon and says, "I was under here Daddy, trying to figure out how everything works."

Shock ran through our bodies as we realized Luke had only been seconds away from running Isaac over with our 6,000 pound SUV. Luke remained calm and was able to sit down with Isaac and tell him how dangerous that was, and that he should never, under any circumstances, climb under a vehicle. I was upstairs praying, thanking God for saving our family from such a disaster. It took me a while to get over the fear over what had almost happened. All night I kept asking Isaac, "You're never going to climb under a parked car again, right?" I think he understands now how dangerous what he did was, and I don't think he'll ever do it again.

Incidents like this are going to happen throughout life, and I think we can use them with our children to teach them two things:

1) Safety- Make sure your children know to never climb underneath vehicles!
2) The realization that death can come at any moment. Isaac was not suicidal when he climbed under the Yukon. He wasn't thinking about death, he was thinking about engines and gears. We never know when our life might end, so we have to always be ready to stand before God.

This last point was one that we discussed a lot that night during our family devotion time before bed. We talk with the boys daily about the gospel, and we used this incident to show Isaac how seriously he needs to think about his own salvation. He has been very interested in spiritual things for quite a while, so hopefully God will use this scary experience to bring him to a saving faith in Christ.

On a lighter note, the rest of our Easter weekend was great. We had a lot of fun with friends and family and a wonderful worship service with our church on Sunday morning. We're still in the waiting stage with our adoption, but Aimee (our caseworker from our adoption agency) said they have been getting most of the phone calls from the hospital. Keep praying, and we'll let everyone know when we get "the call."

Stacie