Time went on, when I was nearly 18, I met a young man, Ron—and we married when I was 20. Shortly before our wedding he asked me if I was a Christian. It might seem strange that it would take two years to get around to that subject, but we were more interested in running around with other young people, in visiting with both our families, and in going to his bowling leagues. Nothing spiritual ever came up in our conversations.

When he asked me that evening if I was a Christian, I answered, yes. I asked if he was, and he said he thought so, but really hadn’t thought much about it.

Whatever the reason for the question, it got us both thinking, and we decided it might be a good idea to visit my grandmother’s church, the First Christian Church of Englewood. (A few years before, I had actually been baptized there at Grandma’s urging, but there had not been any real heart conviction about what it all meant.)

So, Ron and I married at this church and attended there for the next five years, even going to Sunday school every week. We were learning about Jesus and really liked the pastor. As a result, we decided to be baptized—and this time it meant more to me. We were both growing spiritually together.

Our first home was a cute little white, two-bedroom house with red shutters, and was located only a few blocks from the hospital my sister had been in when I had that conversation with that nice nurse. Just a few months after we moved to the house, the nicest couple, Jo and Charles, moved next door to us. They had gotten married just three months after we had, even though they were several years older than us. They both worked at Porter Hospital. She was the head nurse there, and he worked in the billing department.

After a year and a half of marriage, Ron and I were blessed with the sweetest little baby girl anyone could ever pray for—Pamela Dawn. It was then that I really experienced what true love was all about. Never did I ever believe anyone could love anyone more than I loved my tiny, little blond baby! And I believe our neighbors felt almost the same way. Because Jo and Charles had married later in life, they decided not to have any children, and they became like little Pam’s second set of parents. They would come over often to visit with us, and we would return their visits.

One day when Pamela was two years old and I was expecting our second child, Jo and Charles invited us to a Revelation Seminar. We went with them and attended nearly everyone. My old questions about the Sabbath popped up again in my heart when that subject was covered at one of the meetings.

After the Sabbath study, they invited us to visit their church. I gladly accepted their invitation. Ron had to work half days on Saturdays, but he said it was okay with him if I went.

The church was located right next door to Porter Hospital. I remember how strange I felt sitting inside a church on a Saturday. This was usually my day for grocery shopping. As I sat in the pew, I kept thinking that the rest of the world had no idea there were people sitting in church today. Jo took Pamela down to Cradle Roll and sat with her while I stayed up with Charles as he taught the adult Sabbath School. His face beamed as I sat listening and even speaking up some.

The next day Pam and I attended church again, this time with my husband, Ron. It went that way for a few months—and our second child was born.

Little Ronald Lee, Jr. arrived February 25, 1965. He seemed to have trouble breathing and was placed in an incubator. It was heartbreaking to us, but on February 26, 1965, little Ronnie went to his rest at just 40 hours old. His short but hard battle was over.

The next day, we called Brother Miller, the pastor from the First Christian Church. He came to our home to console us and to set up funeral plans. While we were talking, I told him I had been visiting the Seventh-day Adventist Church every week.

He replied, “The Seventh-day Adventists are really nice people. But their beliefs are on shaky ground.” I accepted that, and discontinued going to church on Sabbath, and continued going to his church every Sunday.

Meanwhile, Jo and Charles, our friends next door, were so sweet. They even took off part of a day to attend the funeral service. One might think they would have given up on us when I stopped going to church with them. But they continued being our best of friends. (Of course, they must have been very disappointed.)

A year and a half later we had another baby boy, Michael Lee. Our cute two-bedroom home proved to be too small, and so shortly before Pam’s sixth birthday and Mike’s second birthday, we moved to a larger home in Englewood. Our Adventist friends stayed in close contact with us.

I was working full-time then at a title insurance company. Ron and his brother were in business together in concrete construction. We bought a small, 13-foot camping trailer which we used nearly every week-end, all summer long.

One Thursday night, November 13, 1969, Ron and I were preparing for a hunting trip. (Yes, I was a hunter, too.) I was standing at the kitchen sink, hand washing some clothes, and Ron was outside getting the trailer ready. I told the children they needed to go to their bedrooms to prepare for bed—that I would come in there in a few minutes. While washing the clothes I decided to include the nylon stockings I was wearing, so took I them off. It was a good thing I did that. . . .

Ron left to have the propane tank filled. When he got back, he was going to put it on the camper. He had second thoughts and decided to store it in the basement, since a few nights earlier we had had something stolen from our yard. He came through the back door right off the kitchen and carried the tank to the basement. When he placed it on the floor, the top part of the tank popped off. It was leaking very fast, and he used his glove to try getting the top back in place. I heard the hissing from the kitchen and went down the stairs to warn him that he was going to asphyxiate himself with the fumes. When I opened a window for fresh air, the breeze from the open window blew the fumes to the gas water heater. The pilot ignited the fumes and caused an explosion. Suddenly, we were knee-deep in flames. Then there was a wall of flame separating my husband and me as the propane tank became a flaming torch. We both were terrified.

Ron grabbed a hammer and hooked onto the handle of the tank and dragged it up the stairs. At the top the tank slipped from the claws and rolled into the kitchen. Ron made it out the back door, but flames were shooting from the kitchen, barring the way for me to get through. I took a deep breath and ran up the stairs, through the flames, and out the back door. We both ran to the front door where we tried to get in to the children; but the door was locked! I tried ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door so the children would come open it. What I didn’t know was that the circuit breaker box in the kitchen had already burned up and there was no electricity, so ringing the bell did no good. The last I had seen the children was when I had told them to go to their bedrooms. I feared they were still in the kitchen.

With no electricity, it was dark and Ron was frantically trying to find the key. He rushed a few steps toward the neighbor’s house where there was some light. I kept pounding and praying, “Please God, please God. My children! Please God.” Ron found the keys and unlocked the door and we both ran in. The heat and smoke were unbelievable! There was no way I could breathe. I saw flames shooting from the kitchen out into the dining room. I tried desperately to get to the kitchen. I still thought the children were there! I ran back to the front door for a quick breath and turned back to the kitchen. I was determined I was not leaving until I found them!

Then a miracle happened. In the midst of all the roaring and crackling of the fire I heard a soft “thump” and turned to see the silhouette of my husband carrying both children out the front door, one child under each arm. The “thump” was when our daughter’s foot bumped the door case. I ran after them, and the fire caught the carpet and with a rush hit the front entrance just as I ran out.

The children (praise God!) had gone to their bedrooms when I had told them to. Pam told me they had been in their bedrooms when they heard the explosion. Then the house went dark. They were standing in the hallway between their two bedrooms, crying. That’s where my husband found them.

Our neighbor had called the fire department. An ambulance came, too. Ron had third degree burns on his right wrist and right thigh from dragging the tank upstairs. My legs were burned from the knees down because of the explosion. Had I had my nylon stockings on, who knows how much worse they would have been? My hair was burned very short on the top from running through the flames to get out the back door. But my face was not touched. Our children miraculously had no injuries other than a scrape on our daughter’s right ankle where it hit the doorway on the way out.

The firemen got the fire under control before it got to the bedrooms. The next day we were walking through the destroyed house with our insurance agent when something caught my eye that haunted me for a long time. It was our children’s large, plastic piggy banks that were in their bedrooms. They were all curled up from the intense heat. That’s where my children would have been had they not been rescued!

The night of the fire I told a fireman I shouldn’t have opened the window. But he explained that if I had not opened it, the gas would have built up to the point where there would have been a huge, much more damaging explosion that probably would have killed us all.

While we stayed in a motel for the next six weeks, the brick exterior of the house was rebuilt and the entire interior removed and replaced. The insurance company did extensive research and learned that the propane company had overfilled the tank, which had caused the top to blow off when placed on the floor.

During the first week or so I didn’t go back to work. My legs were swollen and blistered and it was excruciating just getting to a standing position each morning. But soon I was working again and the children were back with their babysitter each day.

The motel was close to my work, so I would drive back and forth each day for lunch. During those drives, I listened to Christian stations on the car radio. I heard so many different beliefs I started becoming confused. One lunch break I went to the bedroom at the back of our motel room and knelt by the bed and prayed with all my heart, “I know, Lord, there is only one God. I know, then, that there can only be one truth. How can I know what that truth is? Please show me!” I believe the Lord was working on me. I was truly in earnest; there was no doubt in my mind that He had saved us that night. There were too many things that happened that could not be chalked up as luck: I took off my stockings; the children obeyed me and went to their rooms; I heard that soft thump in the midst of all that noise; the carpet didn’t catch on fire until we were all safely out; and the big one—there could have been an explosion that would have killed us all! I didn’t deserve it, but God loved us enough to do all that.

While we were staying at the motel, Jo and Charles were concerned and had come to our house looking for us—and after we returned, they began visiting us more often.

They had gone on vacation a short while before all of this, so they invited us to their place one night to see the slides they had taken. They had many, and it took several visits to see them all. For several weeks, every Friday evening, we were looking at their slides with them.

Then one night they told us it was the last of their vacation slides; but they said they had other slides they would love to share with us. They said they knew we were interested in Christian topics and these slides were Christian studies. We loved these people very much, so we accepted the invitation. When we left their house and got into our car, we laughed, saying they were now going to try to make Seventh-day Adventists out of us.

We started learning new things every Friday night. There was the state of the dead, the signs of Jesus’ coming, the Ten Commandments, the Sabbath, and on and on. We never felt we were intruding. They were such gracious hosts!

After each lesson, the children would sleep in the back seat of the car. Ron and I were silent all the way home. We didn’t discuss what we learned. We just pondered separately. Finally one Friday night as we were crawling into bed, I said, “You know what? I think they’re right.” And to my amazement and joy, he answered, “Me, too!”

The next Friday evening after our study, we told our friends that we were convinced. We believed what they were telling us, and we wanted to join their church. I’m sure they were surprised and filled with joy, since neither of us had let them know how we felt. But we had sure pelted them with many questions during all those evenings.

God answers prayers. Hadn’t I asked God in that motel room to show me the truth?

We met with the pastor the following Friday night, and the rest is history . . . for a while. We raised our children Seventh-day Adventists. Pam started second grade in Mile High Academy.

We had a third child, Patrick Daryl, ten months after we joined the church. What a precious, precious blessing. When we lost our baby boy, Ron thought he would never have another son. God doubled the blessing, giving him two more little boys! After several years, being convinced of the necessity to leave the city, we moved out to the country near a town called Elizabeth, where I homeschooled the children.

But not all was perfect. We began noticing inconsistencies. It wasn’t Jo and Charles’ fault. In heart they were Reformers. They had taught us about jewelry and we took off our wedding rings. They taught us about makeup and I washed my face clean. They explained how a person should really keep the Sabbath, and most of the time we kept it with them until we moved too far away.

But the things they taught us weren’t all happening in the church. We learned to ignore the little things, but bigger things began to happen. Ron eventually stopped going, and unfortunately after a while he wasn’t even living the life of an SDA. I really slipped, too. For instance, after we had moved back to the city, I would go for a “Sabbath walk” but would steer us to the garage sales, and we’d stop and look at things. I never started buying, but in my heart I was. The whole family went back to meat eating.

God blessed us through our middle child, Michael, who never fell as the rest of us did, even though he was eating meat and hunting with his dad. Still, he was the spiritual light in our home. He began meeting with other young people and getting involved in Bible studies. On his days off from work it wasn’t an unfamiliar sight to see him sitting at the desk in his bedroom, Bible and notebook open, and writing notes.

In spite of my falling so far away, I still went to church on Sabbaths and still continued with my tithing. In fact I believe the tithing, coupled with our faithful son’s influence, was what kept me from going too far.

One year when it was nearing Christmas, Mike told me this holiday was not really Christian. He said it was the same for Easter. He explained some about the pagan beliefs, and it seemed to make some sense, but I wasn’t convinced.

Then one Sabbath, the day before Easter, Mike asked if I would like to go visit a church out in the country. We had passed its sign several times when we lived in the country, and had wondered what Seventh Day Adventist Reform Movement was all about. I thought I might as well go. Otherwise, I would have to be going to church by myself. So off we went.

The “church” was actually a made-over house. After we parked, we followed the signs that led us to the back to a walkout basement. I was pleasantly surprised to see a long-time friend there.

We found a seat and listened to a sermon by a young man. I was so impressed with the spirituality, length, and depth of the talk. There weren’t the half-hour long announcements I was used to in the other churches—just a few words, and then a full hour of teaching.

We never stopped visiting. Every Sabbath we came and listened and learned so much—about the war issue, the 144,000, divorce and remarriage, and so much more. We also distributed missionary literature together.

I was baptized into the SDARM in June 1993, about ten months after our first visit. Around a year later Mike was baptized. I continue to believe in the doctrines of this denomination. I can’t say things have always been perfect, but considering we are living in an imperfect world, I wouldn’t consider ever joining any other denomination.

As the years go by, especially since I have retired, I have been growing closer and closer to my Creator and Savior. Praise God, shortly before my retirement, I began learning about Christ our Righteousness. Every year is going better than the last. My greatest of joys came a few years after we moved to South Dakota. My husband came back to the Lord. And he has grown even closer to Him than he was before. We both have a long way to go, but now I have someone I can grow with. I no longer have to stand by myself—we stand together. We are being polished as precious jewels that will fit us into the Lord’s palace (Psalm 144).

And together we can hardly wait until we see that little cloud appearing in the eastern skies, to see our blessed Savior coming to take us home—and to see our little infant “. . . come forth immortal from [his dusty bed and wing his way to his] mother’s arms. They meet again never more to part.”1

Amen!