SMOKE VALLEY

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF SMOKE

         “Hold my hand!” she screamed, desperately, to her grandchildren, as they trudged through the smoke together.  Together, they were moving as quickly as possible, trudging through the muck.  Behind them they could hear the howling in the darkness.

          “I’m scared, Mama Mel” was repeatedly whimpered from her little ones.  She tried to comfort them, telling them that I was just ahead, through the smoke, looking for a way out.

          “Melanie!  Can you hear me?!  Over here.  Over here…”  If I had lost her in the smoke and the swamp, I would have lost it.  But she slowly came into view, she and the kids, holding hands, like a safety chain.

          “Who started all these fires?  Why?”  she asked with fear choking her as badly as the smoke.

          I told her that they were trying to drive us out with the fires so the hounds could corner us.  “We need to keep moving and stay ahead of them,”  I nervously reinforced.

          Then, I noticed that Zeke was missing.  With tears pooling in her eyes, Melanie sobbed, “Zeke left, with his three, and took off down the hill.  He said he was not sure we were going the right way; and, maybe the hounds were rescue dogs…”

          “What are we going to do, Jerry?!”  She wanted to go back into the smoke and find Zeke.  But, I told her we had to keep going forward.  I sighed, thinking, “perhaps others will meet him and turn them around?”

          We came to a path that led up the mountain and out of the smoke.  The fresh air was incredibly refreshing.  And, we could see ahead of us the tree lined shore of a sparkling blue lake.  We had made it out of the fires and escaped the hounds.  They would not follow us here.  Ahead were friends coming to help us.  I smiled, “He got us through!”  Then, I turned and yelled, “Zeke!  Zeke! …”  Melanie took my hand and we knelt in prayer.

¹² Then the men said to Lot, “Have you any one else here? Sons-in-law, sons, daughters, or any one you have in the city, bring them out of the place; ¹³ for we are about to destroy this place, because the outcry against its people has become great before the Lord, and the Lord has sent us to destroy it.” ¹⁴ So Lot went out and said to his sons-in-law, who were to marry his daughters, “Up, get out of this place; for the Lord is about to destroy the city.” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be jesting.
¹⁵ When morning dawned, the angels urged Lot, saying, “Arise, take your wife and your two daughters who are here, lest you be consumed in the punishment of the city.” ¹⁶ But he lingered; so the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him forth and set him outside the city. ¹⁷ And when they had brought them forth, they said, “Flee for your life; do not look back or stop anywhere in the valley; flee to the hills, lest you be consumed.” Gen.19