Hot Wax and Glass Bottles

  

Beautiful Wisteria

A Safer Decoration than Wax Covered Glass Bottles

Psalm 18:6 NIV

"In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears."

"Dad, Dad? DAD!!!"  I had tried to get my father's attention for what seemed like hours.

He was on the phone.  Dad did NOT like to be interrupted while he was on the phone. He had a theory that children should be seen and not heard after dinner, and this was definitely after dinner. In fact, it was Saturday night, and mom was at the hospital working.

I'm not sure where Rob and Teri were, probably staying out of dad's way, but I was in the kitchen watching the candle burning wax on the coke bottle slowly drip onto our kitchen counter, causing little flames to appear on the laminated counter top.

Dad had heard about a craft idea, which involved decorating coke bottles with wax candles. The idea was to let melted candles drip over the side of the bottle, and the colorful streaks would decorate the bottle. The bottle could be used as a candle holder, I suppose, in the future.

"DAD!"  He waved me aside and walked into the living room.  "HUSH, Lori!" he hissed.

He wouldn't pay attention to me. My daughter, Allison, often wonders why adults don't listen to children. I'm sure it has been a problem for generations.

"Dad! Dad!---

Dad--there's a fire!"

Finally I used the right word. Apparently adults understand the word "fire".  He looked over where I had been pointing, uttered a few choice words, abruptly hung up the phone, and began to put out the fire.

By the time he finished, our kitchen counter had burned, but we had no other damage to the house. The coke bottle with melted wax was colorful, but I'm not sure we ever used it for anything.

My dad's father drove over from Indiana to repair our counter a few weeks later, and soon, our kitchen was back to normal.

I was still relegated to the edict, "children should be seen and not heard," but dad hugged and kissed me that night for discovering the fire.

One difference between my dad and God is God wants me to talk to him at all hours of the day, and He doesn't put me "on hold" for phone calls. If I have an emergency in my life, He's right there beside me to put out the fire.

All I have to do is call out: "God! I need you! Help me, please."
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Lord, thank you for listening to me and for putting out the fires of my life.