The Night I Did Everything Wrong

I was rocking it!  I had made 6 lasagna dinners, gone to track practice and won the wall sit competition against the throwers, and come home to my mom and Annie and Jane and watched the Voice.  Life was good.

I really wanted to finish up the enchiladas that I had started earlier and get that project checked off of the never ending list.  So I let my Mom take care of Jane and I started warming up some coconut oil to saute the onions.  Jane wasn't wanting Mom so I took a second to go grab her... and then began to change her diaper to help her quiet down.

A minute later Mom mentioned that she smelled something burning.  I realized I had left the pan of oil heating on the stove.   I jumped up, ran to the kitchen, turned the burner off and returned to the baby in the living room.  Not a minute later, mom looked up and saw flickering on the hallway wall.  "What is flashing/flickering in the kitchen?"  As I looked through the little cubby hole in the wall separating the kitchen from the living room I saw flames emerging from the pan I had just turned off.

Baby in tow, I ran to the kitchen, saw that the flames were growing bigger, sat the baby down on the floor, grabbed the pan and sadly my first thought was "get the pot under water."  As I was carrying the flaming pot towards the sink (Mind you there are long curtains that hang over our sink...) my mom comes in yelling "No, not water!!"  Thank goodness for her.  She scooped up Jane off the floor and all I could think about was how do I get this fire out making the least amount of mess!  (Embarrassing to admit!  I have a fire extinguisher right under the sink, two feet from where I was standing and in that instant I chose not to use it from not wanting to make a mess... What a freak!)

I decided the only way to handle the fire was get it out of the house.  Within milliseconds I was rushing through our tiny kitchen, flaming pot in front, trying to not let the oxygen fueled flames spread.  I squeezed through the hallway, mom yelling at me the whole time "you're on fire, you're on fire!"  I reached the door.  Of course, it was locked up for the night.  Fumbling with the locks, the flames were growing bigger, burning oil was sloshing out of the pan on to the floor and coats as I tried opening the door.  As I exited the house I had to pass the burning pot in between me and the door.  Flames reached up past my head, reaching out and burning the fraying screen on the storm door.  The second I was able to, I chucked the whole burning pot out the door and into our hedge surrounding our property.  I ran back inside to see what other fires I had started on the way out and miraculously not a single one remained.  I grabbed the fire extinguisher from underneath the sink and ran outside and soaked the pot with fire retardant.

Let's list the stupid things I did... (This is more to drive this into my "special" head not to EVER do again.)
1. Never leave anything unattended on the stove...especially OIL!!
2. When you see flames anywhere, don't worry about a potential mess that you could make putting it out.  Go for the fire extinguisher.
3.  Do not try to put an oil fire out with water.  How many times has this been drilled into my head.  When it really mattered, did I remember that ?  Nope.  Thank goodness my mom was here to straighten me out.
4. Never run through the house with a pot of oil on fire!
5. NEVER run through the house with a pot of OIL on FirE!!!!  AAHH!
6. Do not chuck a flaming pot of oil at a dry hedge surrounding your property!

Now this was an incredibly stupid decision night for me.  I am the first to recognize that I made very foolish decisions that could have made everything be 500 times worse.  Our night could have turned out terribly different and terrible.  I am choosing not to dwell on what could have happened, because eventually I am going to need to sleep tonight.  However, despite all of my imperfect decisions, I feel like we were so blessed in spite of it all.  I had my angels around me stomping out mini flames and putting flames guards around me and my family keeping us safe.

List of tender mercies:
1. My mom smelt the smoke before the fire alarm went off.
2. My mom saw the flickering on the wall.
3. My mom stopped me from putting water on the fire.
4. The lady came to pick up the pile of boxes I had stacked waiting for her in front of the door earlier today. Had she not come, I would not have been able to open the door enough to get out.
5. Every little fire oil ball that dropped was immediately extinguished.  Yes, I do have melted carpet spots the size of quarters through out my hallway, but no other damage was done.
6.  I did not receive one burn.  Mom said it looked like the flames were up and down my torso.
7. The hedge did not catch on fire.
8, No one was hurt, everyone safe and we were watched out for and protected even in spite of my foolishness.

Life could be very different right now.  All I can do is lay here and think of how grateful I am to my Father in Heaven for watching out for my family and home.  My mom felt it very important that we say a prayer of thanks as we gathered ourselves together again.  I am so grateful for these tender mercies.  I am grateful for a mom who is able to pay attention to the small things to keep us safe (because I was sure bombing at the time).  Most of all I am grateful for a Father in Heaven who knows that I will not make correct choices, but is still patient and sends angels to tamp out the flames I set.

I pray and beg the Lord every night that our family will be safe and that our home will be protected.  I know that I will not be able to avoid all mishap or accident or disaster.  But I do know that my prayers are heard and that He is mindful of me and my family.

President Packer said this in this past conference, "...There are few things more powerful than the faithful prayers of a righteous mother."  This I know is true.  It was evident tonight in answering my prayers as a young, inexperienced mom with the sole desire that my family just be safe and protected.