My girlhood home in Grantsville, Maryland, where I lived for most of my childhood.*

The Lord said, “Before they call I will answer, while they are still speaking I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24 NIV).

All my life I’d had a vague memory from my early childhood of a toaster that burst into flames while I was trying to make toast for my invalid grandmother. Many years later when I asked my Aunt Edna* about it, she told me what actually happened.

Apparently, my Aunt Edna left me to entertain Grammy while she went to do laundry at my parents’ house just down the road. Up to her elbows in suds, Aunt Edna suddenly had an inner urging that she should go home at once. She ran the entire distance and found Grammy and me in a panic with smoke billowing through the house. The wooden dining room table under the ancient toaster was just beginning to char. Only my Aunt’s instant obedience had averted a tragedy.

 Although it would be more than 20 years before this became a reality in my my  own life, there was never any doubt in my Aunt Edna’s mind that God will speak if only His children will listen and obey.

Father, thank you that we do not serve a God who has a mouth but cannot speak and ears but cannot hear. (Psalm 115:5-6). Amen.

(*My book is divided into sections by pictures of the house I lived in during that season of my life. Other Photo l. to r. My Dad, Aunt Lydia, Aunt Edna)

From: Homespun Faith, Reflections from the Seasons of Life, Copyright 2014 Daisy Beiler Townsend