A HAUNTED HOUSE.....SCARED ME TO "LIFE?"

Hi all! Does my blog subject have you totally confused? I know I would be.  Hopefully I can explain a bit more fully in the following story.

I am thinking of a day when I was about 14 years old. Still a shy, bashful young lady living in the little home with mom, dad, three brothers and my baby sister, Faith.

Across the street from us and down about four or five houses was a dark, gloomy old empty house. The windows were out, and boards were off here and there. No door. They say it was haunted, but I never wanted to find out!! (smile!) But as the law of averages goes, I "did find out one evening!"  Mom and I had been downtown to the grocery store and were walking home.  As we approached the spot across the street from the "old empty house" I held mom's hand, just because it made me feel more safe.

All of a sudden it sounded like someone was on the roof of the old house, and had poured out a big box of rocks.  It was loud, and very scary! Mom and I hurried our steps quite a bit and finally got home safely. We told dad what we had heard, but I am not sure he believed us.  Although, he knew mom was not the kind to lie or make up stories.  Now if my dad had told this story......let me say we would have had to ask mom if this was true. He was quite the story teller, and we always enjoyed hearing them, because with each telling, the story became just a little more involved and interesting.....sometimes a bit scary. Well, our family never found out what that noise was that mom and I heard, and didn't really want to know.....well, maybe we did a little! It wasn't long before a crew came in and tore the old house down. They left quite a few old boards and debris laying around, though.

One day a man who lived in town had gone to the place where the old house had been, and had his metal detector with him.  He was looking through all that was left behind, hoping to find a treasure of some kind, I guess. What he found was a rusty old nail he hadn't seen that had been sticking up in a board. It stuck in his foot and he just pulled it out and doctored it himself we were told....and didn't go have it checked at our local doctor's office. He passed away not long after that, and they said it was because he didn't get the foot taken care of properly, so it became very infected and caused him to have what was called "lockjaw" back then. We know it as Tetanus now. (My nurse and doctor friends can feel free to correct me if this is wrong.)

Not long after that, and on a Saturday morning mom asked me to walk downtown to pay the rent.......$18.00 per month!  Can you believe that?  I can hardly wrap my mind around this myself.  Our home was a very small, three room home with no running water, and heated with coal and wood as I mentioned in a previous blog post. Back then that was a lot of money to come up with each month, especially for our large family.

So, in order to get to the place where I was to pay the rent I took a shortcut through an alley. Not a good idea as I quickly found out. You guessed it......I stepped on an old nail, and it went right through the little old, thin tennis shoe I had on, and into my foot!  Well, it didn't take much to scare me, so you can just imagine how much this hurt and frightened me, simply because I knew about the man dying from stepping on a nail.  I started crying and ran home as fast as I could.....again, not a good thing to do!

Mom dried my tears as best she could, and then we walked downtown to the doctor. Back then, in a small town you didn't need an appointment.  You just sat in a big entry room and waited your turn.  When we finally saw the doctor, we told him our story, even bringing up the part about the local man dying of lockjaw. He was very aware of that happening. He told me not to worry, and that he had a shot for this very problem.  It was not a fun shot, as it hurt like the dickens, and even got just about as sore as my foot.  I guess to a kid no shot is fun, though, right?

We went back home with instructions to keep the foot clean and even soak it in a solution that he told us about. If it became infected we were to go back to him. The blessings began to flow and the foot never did become infected. But, it sure did swell! We had to borrow a large house shoe from a neighbor for me to wear if I went outside.

Now, I am going to switch gears here a little and tell you that I had been going to church regularly since I was about six or seven years old.  I loved going to see my friends, be a part of Christmas plays, and so on, and was even able to go to church camp one year.  Every time I would listen to the sermon (back then we didn't have children's church during sermon time) it seemed that the preacher was talking just to me. As I became older the feeling became more and more intense, and I could hardly wait for church to be over so I could get out of there. (smiling again!)

At the church where I went there was always an "invitation" given during the last hymn sung for anyone who would like to commit their life to Jesus and have the hope of "eternal life."  If we felt that need we were to go forward and confess this need before the preacher and the entire congregation.  Boy, it took me a long time to work up the courage to do such a thing......being so shy, you know!!

Well, just having stepped on a rusty old nail, and wondering if I was going to die, I could hardly wait for church day to come. I had made up my mind to walk up to the front of that church no matter what!  I knew I wanted to "live eternally, and was afraid I might not if I didn't make this walk and confession!" It had all been explained so that even we younger people could understand, so I knew what I was doing.

Big house shoe and all, that Sunday I gave my life to Christ, was baptised as was the custom at that church.  It was the weekend of the 4th of July when everyone else was out celebrating with parties, fireworks, and so on. But, I had a celebration of my own.  I have never regretted making that choice as a fourteen year old teenager.

My foot finally got better, I kept going to church, and have lived with the blessed assurance of "eternal life" with Him when I leave this world for my "real home" until this very day.

So, maybe now you can understand the title of this post. I believe that the old "haunted house" and a poor man's experience truly did play a part in my being... not scared to death as we usually say, but "scared to 'life everlasting!' "

Thanks for reading my story, and I hope you come back as I continue to share.    Alice