Receiving a warning about what was going to happen

Four years ago I had a very uneasy feeling accompanied by a vision. I was suddenly afraid of sleeping by the wood stove and kept having the vision that the little door was being pushed open by flames and that those flames were going to burn me if I slept on the couch which was right beside it. I couldn’t understand why all of a sudden I pictured this scenario and why I was afraid, when we had had the stove for at least 6 years and I would take pleasure in having a snooze on the couch right beside this source of heat. I snoozed there at least once a week and now all of a sudden it made me uneasy.

That same week I had a doctor’s appointment and in the waiting room there were Reader’s Digest magazines. I do not receive these magazines at home and have read them maybe 3 or 4 times in my life. The edition I happened to be reading had an article about fires and how having an emergency exit plan at home was important, and of course changing the battery in the fire detectors. I honestly cannot remember the last time that we had changed the batteries. Well that same day when I got home (I was living with my parents at the time), I told my mother about the article I had read. I asked her whether we had some sort of plan of how to evacuate the house if there was ever a fire. She told me that she had read the same article (now people who don’t believe in God would say: what a coincidence!), at the time I didn’t know God and thought it was just that, a crazy coincidence. Luckily, after having both read the same article, and after me telling her about my bad feeling, we changed the batteries in our fire detectors and thought up a plan in case a fire blocked us from getting out by our house doors.

About one week later, I got home late after studying for an exam that was the next day. When I arrived at my parent’s house I couldn’t understand why there were pieces of wood and other junk on our front lawn (I thought some very impolite person had dumped their stuff). As i went to turn the knob my father opened the door with bloodshot eyes and looking quite shaky saying : “Don’t worry sam….!”, that’s when I smelled it and asked “Fire????”. Well guess what…at 11pm my parents who were sleeping were woken up by our fire alarms. When they hurried downstairs they saw the big flames coming out of the wood stove (not actually out the door as I had pictured it, but out of the top of the stove). They were able to put it out a bit with a fire extinguisher while waiting for the firemen to arrive.

At the time I couldn’t understand why I had had that vision. I had always had a sort of “6th sens” where I knew I was going to meet someone or I knew something was going to happen, but I never thought much of it. Now though, I understand that it was the Holy Spirit who spoke to me and my mother to warn us about the event that we were about to live. It is only thanks to God if we changed the batteries in our fire detectors on time.