Supernatural provision of electric power, or what?
- Roy Atkins
- Sep 16, 2009
The whole saga began with my routine six-monthly visit to the neurologist for a check-up last month. He prescribed medication to counter a certain unpleasant symptom, and when the dose had no effect he doubled it, insisting that it was "mild" and would do no harm. My body reacted very badly, and I was plunged into a nightmarish situation, where I began experiencing a serious decline in physical strength and mobility, not being able to do the most basic things, like getting on and off the bed. Coupled with that, I suffered from extreme anxiety and moments of hopelessness and despair. Even though I stopped taking the medication on the Wednesday morning after only two days instead of four (as prescribed), I carried on my downward spiral for another two days, reaching my lowest point on the Friday.
That Saturday morning was the turning point after which I started recovering. Some guys from my homegroup came to have a braai with me while the ladies took Lynne out for a brunch. I was prayed for, and by the time they left in the afternoon, I was noticeably stronger. Praise God.
Now comes the exciting part ...
That evening the electricity went off at about 10pm and came back on at around 3am on the Sunday morning. Then it was off again by 8.30am. I was feeling a lot better by then, so we decided to visit some friends for lunch. We went to them straight from church, spent the afternoon there, and only returned at about 9pm. Our hearts sank as we turned up our road, because it was completely dark – no street lights or house lights. Imagine our surprise when we turned into our driveway, and the automatic lights switched on. We just assumed our power had been restored earlier than everyone else's, for which we were grateful. I was still rather emotionally fragile at that stage, and having no lights would have been horrible.
The city council was working on the power system when we arrived home, and worked all night (running a petrol generator for their lights). On the Monday morning we saw that the electricity distribution box on the pavement had been removed and was to be replaced with a new one.
In the afternoon I went out to where the city council team was working, and, pointing to our house, asked their leader where our power came from. "From here," he said. ("Here" being rectangular hole in the ground with a bunch of cables sticking up into the air.) "But we have power now," I said. "Impossible!" he retorted. When we insisted that we did have power, he shook his head in amazement and said, "Die Here pas julle mooi op!" (God is looking after you well)
A little later a foreman arrived in a bakkie to assess progress, and I took the opportunity to ask him what was going on – how come we had power when no-one else did? He was extremely puzzled, and obviously did not really believe me. He asked for a key and opened our meter box. "I can see you've got power, because the meter is turning round," he said, but was unable to explain what he was seeing.
Now, I can't explain what happened, but I know one thing: the Lord blessed us at a time when I did not need any other stress in my life, and saved us from the power outage that all our neighbours experienced. Even if there is a logical explanation, it's strange that out of all the houses supplied from that electricity distribution box, ours was the ONLY one with power on Sunday and Monday till 10pm.
Roy Atkins
