Edgar Family Website
A Family Spiritual Experience
| In the Spring of 1975, my family and I were living in the Rheinland Pfaltz area of West Germany. If you've ever been to Germany in the Spring, you'll know how beautifully green the country and farmlands are. In the morning there is often a thin layer of fog draped across the land as though it was a great eiderdown blanket. One particularly beautiful Sunday morning, as I was returning home from Priesthood Meeting, I noticed an automobile had rolled off the road in the night and was lying on its side in the moist roadbed. I stopped to check for any injured but there was no one in sight. As the day continued, the automobile remained in the same position seemingly undisturbed. My family and I drove past it several times that day on our way to various church meetings. Finally, just before nightfall, the curiosity became too much for my children to bear. It had been raining most of the afternoon, but they wanted to have a closer look. Agreeable, I parked our car near the vehicle and facing down into the forest. Inside the forest it was already black because of the thick canopy and the oncoming night. The headlights of our car seemed to penetrate the darkness a few feet in front of us but failed to illuminate the area. With my flashlight, we looked the wrecked vehicle over for a few minutes. After we returned to our car, I soon discovered that we were stuck in the mud. I couldn't back the car up, but I could drive forward. On a previous Saturday, we had driven through the forest and found that many (if not all) forest roads were interconnected and would eventually lead back out and onto a developed road. Armed with that information, and seeing a forest road directly in front of us, I decided to move forward and into the blackness of the forest. It wasn't long before I realized that I had made the wrong decision. The narrow road almost immediately began to lead down hill. That was my first clue. Then the road became wet and muddy. Soon, I found us driving through mud ruts I wouldn't recommend for tractor use. The situation was incredulous. The road just kept leading further and further down and into the forest. I remember trying to keep our speed up for fear that if we stopped we would be mired permanently. I spotted a high spot just ahead and to the right which looked firm enough to sustain the weight of the car. My thinking was to just get the car up and out of the mud to give myself time to think. I jerked the steering wheel to the right and the car lunged up and out of its rut. Now stopped, I turned to my children who were becoming increasingly more frightened. After trying to calm them down, I turned the engine off and climbed out of the car to see what kind of fix we were in. With the car headlights off, I couldn't see a thing. Not even my hand! I turned the headlights back on, grabbed our flashlight and, after looking the car over, decided that my best bet was to back a little bit into the forest, and then to take a mad dash from the forest onto and up the access road. With my wife holding the flashlight, we backed the car as far into the forest as possible. Then we climbed in, raced the engine a little, and, with as much speed as I could get, we lunged back onto the road. No sooner then we reached the road but we stopped dead in our tracks. Now we were really in trouble. I just sat there stewing. Outside of the car there was total blackness and an awesome silence. Inside the car, my wife and I sat with three terrified children. At that moment, I turned to my wife and said, "Do you have any ideas?" She thought for a moment and then said, "Maybe we should pray." Prayer! Why didn't I think of that? The children calmed down almost immediately. I began to offer a humble but desparate prayer for help; and as I was praying, the thought came clearly into my mind: "Put on the Tire Chains." I was still in the middle of my prayer, but I knew exactly what to do and I couldn't wait to finish. Afterwards, still wearing my three piece suit, I climbed out of the car; and my dear wife got out to help. Standing in 6 to 10 inches of mud, wearing her Sunday dress, my poor wife held the flashlight while I squatted down in the cold mud and began digging it from around the rear tires with my bear hands. Soon, the chains were on and we got back into the car. Now with renewed faith and confidence, we had another short prayer and then started the engine. Slowly, as if like a tractor, we began moving forward trudging back up the hill and eventually back onto the pavement. We were freed! In the excitement of being liberated from the mud and the darkness, I almost forgot who was there in the forest to help us. Heather, our oldest daughter, was quick to remind me when she said, "Daddy, Heavenly Father really does answer prayers, doesn't He?" |
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