I was chatting with a lady who visits our neighborhood fairly regularly the other day. She had cut her ankle on a rusty nail and was thinking she may have to go have it looked at as it was swelling a bit, but it is what she told me next that was sadder. She told me a few days before her basement had caught on fire when her furnace malfunctioned. Apparently all the fuel for it had spilled out on the floor and caught fire. She said they had just gotten a fuel delivery a couple days before, and they lost all their fuel in the fire. The house would probably have been a goner, but she said the water pipes that ran in the basement were plastic and they melted at the heat. She said the water poring out of them managed to hold the fire at bay till the firemen were able to get there and put it out. According to her most of the damage was confined to the basement, but the furnace is unusable. I said to her what are you going to do if it gets cold? Our weather has been all over the place this winter. She said she did not know. I told her I had a small electric space heater if she would like to have it. ( I actually had 2, but I may need one for my bathroom if the temp drops like it did last winter.) She said she would love to have it. She plans to get some more. I came home and got the heater. When I took it back to her a representative from a charity group heard what she and I had said to each other. She saw me give the poor lady that had the fire the heater, and heard her thank me for it. She asked the girl I gave it to what was wrong, and she told her about the fire. The lady from the charity asked the other lady what she could do to help. They are going to try to help her replace some of the things she lost.
The lord works in mysterious ways: Had the lady with the nail not stopped to show it to my , I may not have found out about the fire. And she may not have gotten help from this other people had she stayed home.
