PRAISE GOD FOR MY LITTLE SISTER

When I was about ten years old, my sister and I had gotten into some trouble with our father, and in his anger he told us to leave the house and walk over to our brother's home.
We started walking just before dusk. By the time we were a little over half a mile from his home, an eerie (black) darkness suddenly engulfed the street we were on. There was no traffic on the particular block. The houses were dark and looked vacant. The street lights were not on, and there was a chilling quiet that seem to cover everything.
My sister and I, at that age, had always been taught by our mother to hold hands, when we were not certain of what was happening around us. Just as we did so and had quickened our pace, we heard a loud noise coming from across the street just in front of us. The noise sounded like someone had just kicked something, so we paused thinking it was a dog. Suddenly a man stepped out of the dark shadows, between two houses.
He was rather tall with a hat and overcoat, limping very badly with a cane. Immediately, he called to us for help in climbing the steps to his front porch because he was crippled. I felt apprehensive as I couldn't see his face, and his house was totally dark. But, 'he needed help', I told myself. So, I told my sister to wait there, while I went and helped the man. I let go of her hand and took two steps toward him, when she grabbed my hand and pulled me back, shouting: "He's a stranger! Let's run!" I grabbed her hand and told her never to let go of me, and we started running. The 'crippled' man dropped his cane and started chasing after us. It was so dark that we could barely see the sidewalk as we ran for our lives. We didn't scream as we ran. (I guess because the houses looked deserted. But thinking back on it, we should have screamed our heads off.) My sister and I could run like track stars. Although he couldn't catch us, I knew we'd get tired before he would.
We had already run a full block that was void of life, when suddenly out of nowhere a beautiful white light appeared in the midst of all that darkness just ahead of us, and we ran straight for it. As it caressed us, we felt so safe inside of it that we stopped running and looked back to see, where the 'crippled' man was. God's Holy White Light was like a curtain that hung between good and evil, and on the otherside of this curtain of miraculous light, I watched as the 'crippled' man paced back and forth in his darkness like a caged, wild animal. This evil man could not come into God's Holy White Light, where my sister and I were standing. The Light was there for our protection. As it held him at bay, we continued running to our brother's house two blocks away. Never once glancing behind us because we knew that night we were being protected by God and His Holy White Light. Praise God!

On that night so many years ago, I forgot the first rules of safety my mother had always taught us: "Don't talk to strangers! Don't go with strangers!" I always praise God for His help that night and for my little sister. She was the one who remembered 'Mama's Rules'.


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