Birthday Lantern

Have you had the opportunity to share God with someone recently, maybe in an unexpected or interesting way?

We live in a rural area, surrounded by beautiful bush, trees and shrubbery. A few years ago, my next-door neighbour cleared all but one tree on her block, to comply with fire safety regulations.

That same week, my young son had a surprise for my Birthday. At exactly midnight, he woke me up, presented me with a beautiful lantern that he had made himself and took me outside. I found myself unexpectedly standing in the freezing cold, barefoot, and wearing only a summer nightie. He eagerly took the lantern from my hands, lit it up, and released it into the air with excitement. He’d been inspired to create it for me, after making and releasing a lantern several days earlier at a festival.

After watching the lantern disappear into the night sky, we came back into the warmth of the house. At that very moment, a bizarre thought crossed my mind… ‘Stay awake and watch it rise!’ I immediately went back outside to look for the lantern in the sky, but couldn’t see it anywhere. My son followed me out and he looked too, but the lantern seemed to be gone.

We continued to look for a short time, and to my surprise, I heard my son yell out, “I see fire next door!” I looked over at our neighbours property to see the one and only tree left standing on her block on fire.

I ran inside, woke my husband, also in nightwear, and the three of us rushed over towards the flames. We discovered our neighbour’s front gate was locked, and awkwardly climbed over the barbed wire fence to see the remains of the birthday lantern partially burnt at the base of the tree.

We knocked loudly on our neighbour’s door, who had been in a rather deep sleep. As she tried to wake up, she informed us that her water supply was quite a distance from the tree, and we found that her garden hose was broken, her watering-can had a hole in it and transporting water to the tree was rather difficult.

A short time later, with some quick thinking, we managed to save the tree. We chatted to our neighbour and discovered that she had begun reading the Bible for the very first time and had some difficulties understanding the Book of Galatians. It so happened we had been reading through Galatians at home as a family and my son had the opportunity to share his knowledge with her.

We stood right there, near the lonely tree we just saved, barefoot, minimally dressed, wet and muddy, in the middle of the night, chatting about the love of God. It was a hilarious experience in hindsight, but a true blessing in the end!