Today’s story is about revelation to children, and the power of praying unceasingly. It happened in an October so I’m sharing some of my fall photos.

This story, called, “Save My Life, Comfort My Children” comes from the September 1987 Ensign magazine, and it’s by Mette Hansen. In this story Mette was coming home from work on a rainy October day in 1968, in Denmark. Maybe it looked like the picture above, with leaves turning colors to brighten up the drizzly landscape. She rode her bicycle to and from work every day. As she crossed a crosswalk on this rainy day, while walking her bike, a car hit her bike causing it to go sailing in the air, smashing it to half its original size. During this catastrophe, her life and thoughts of family flashed before her eyes as she said a prayer asking God to save her life. Amazingly enough, she was not knocked unconscious with the impact even though she immediately felt a ton of pain after falling on the road. She noticed that the car’s tire that hit her bike was just inches from her head as she lay there on the pavement. She knew a miracle had happened to spare her life. She felt an angel had stopped the car from hitting her head. Then she was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

The visit at the the hospital, with all the tests, took 5 hours. This was in the days before cell phones, so she could not call her children’s daycare center to tell the people there to relay a message to her children what had happened and why she did not come to get them.

Eventually she was released and got home that same night. She asked her son what happened when she did not come to pick him up with his sister. He said that when she did not come he decided she must have had to work late so he and his sister walked home. Upon arriving home, when they discovered they were locked out, he pondered what to do. He decided to pray and ask for help.

Then he said:

“I felt a big, warm hand touching the top of my head, and I heard a friendly voice saying, ‘Your mother is well, she has been taken care of. It will be a while before she comes home, and it will be dark outside, but just stay calm. Take your little sister by the hand and stay near the apartment and play peacefully. If you do, the time will go by quickly until your mother is with you again.’”

He looked up to see who was saying this, and could see no one, yet he was calm.

Before this happened, the mother had prayed unceasingly while in the hospital. She asked God to comfort her children, to tell them what to do, and not panic. I see that her prayer was richly rewarded. I wonder, if she had not prayed unceasingly, but had just uttered a rushed prayer only once, would she have received the same blessing? The mom, Mette, writes that in years to come, her son sometimes struggled with his faith. She often reminded him of this time when he heard a voice telling him what do. It always confirmed his belief in the truthfulness of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Mette concludes with the scripture:

“I have also learned how important it is for us to teach our children to pray and to remember the words in Psalms 94:9: “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?”