Flashback

I just shared a memory from over 24 years ago and the turmoil I felt inside was like someone turned by stomach into a blender and dialed puree! Three of my children, then in grade school, were involved in a hostage/school bombing. It happened in Cokeville, Wyoming in May 1986. A man and his wife, armed with guns, walked into the elementary school, herded all the students and faculty into one classroom and held them hostage for over three hours. In the middle of the classroom was a shopping cart loaded with a gasoline bomb, connected with wires to multiple explosives set up to level the school if there demands were not met. The man sat next to the shopping cart with a hair trigger line wrapped around his wrist. As this terror unfolded inside the school, frantic parents gathered behind yellow taped barriers and prayed. I had temporarily stepped away from the vigil and gone to a neighbor's house to put sleepy, uncomprehending pre-schoolers down for a nap. Moments later there was an explosion and a large plume of black smoke rolled up into the sky. As I fled back to the school I started passing school children, faces covered in black soot. I scanned each face as I ran pleading with God that my children were among the survivors. I was certain there were casualties. My progress seemed like a dream where everything is in slow motion. Suddenly, I saw them. All three of my precious children were standing in a corn yard, running water from a hose over my 11 year old daughter's arm. She had been burned in the fire that ensued from the gasoline bomb exploding. She would be fine. In fact, everyone survived, miraculously, except the man and his wife. He shot her and then committed suicide. God does hear and answer prayers.