I just got this wonderful email from Heidi in response to an article that I sent to the family.  This is very reinforcing.  It thrills me to think that I'm reaching and influencing a 9-year-old grandson.

“We feel so blessed to have your writings and are inspired by them regularly! They are a part of our morning devotionals. What a gift to us and all the generations to come!

“The kids love to hear them and they remember them! Your articles and stories have become a part of them and their characters. Spencer was retelling your story about being immediately obedient to me yesterday. He said he'd been playing with a friend when the friend's mom said it was time to go home. The friend started to climb a tree instead of going with his mom. Spencer told his friend he needed to listen to his mom and told him about the son who decided to make one more lap around the field on the snowmobile and ended up crashing and being killed.

“I'd already forgotten that story after just a week or two, but I think the things these kids hear while they are young, especially repeatedly, stick with them for life. I still remember well all the stories and lessons from Conference we heard so often in our devotionals while I was growing up. The kids surprise me often by referring to something you've written. I'm grateful they have your influence so abundantly in their lives!”

Heidi

That email made me feel good, but it threw me for a loop.  I couldn't initially remember having told that story.  In fact, I was just preparing to write an article, and include it in the essay.

I finally found that snowmobile story in That Ye May Learn Wisdom, page 29, in an article called “Do It Now.”  The following story should be considered an addendum to that “Do It Now” story.

Our 92-year-old friend, Joy Barnhart, told a wonderful story that needs to be recorded.  She was raised in Baker County down on the Snake River.  Her home was down toward the old site of Homestead, but her house was above the current water level of the Hells Canyon Reservoir.

One day when she was about six, she and her two older brothers were playing up the canyon, perhaps a hundred yards from the house.  She went back to the house to get something.  Her father came in just then, and asked where the boys were.  She replied that they were up the canyon.  He said, “Go tell them to get home right now!”  He didn't say why.

Joy ran back to the canyon, and to their credit, the boys immediately obeyed.  They came back to the house.  Just five or ten minutes later a flash flood came roaring down the canyon.  Had they been there, or if they had delayed coming to their father's summons, they'd have been washed away.

Joy's father had seen an ominous, black cloud high over the ridge, and knew that it might be capable of producing a sudden downpour and flash flood.  After the flood had passed, the 5- or 6-foot-diameter culvert in their road was standing all alone in the washed-out canyon.  The road and all of the fill around the culvert had been washed away.

Moral:  Do it now.  Practice immediate obedience.  We don't always need to know why we're to do something.