She Prayed Me Out of My Station

It came out of nowhere. I was getting ready to leave for work at fire Station 1. After hugging and kissing my wife, she said, I want you to know that I am praying to God that you will be leaving Station 1 and be assigned to Station 32. The first question that came to mind was, “Why?”  However, that is not what came out of my mouth. What I said was Ray don’t pray that.

You see at the time this was one of the best crews that I had ever worked with. My best friend in the world was my supervisor. Mike Reed was one of the best chiefs to put on a pair of fire boots. I was downtown San Diego at Station 1, the big house. It was great, it was just an awesome place to work.

It was worth noting here that my wife is a woman of faith and prayer I literally begged and pleaded with her not to pray this prayer. Station 32 was the closest fire station to our home in Southeast San Diego and I was pastoring the church along with the many other duties that took up my time. She said that she believed it was God ‘s will for me to be closer to home and in a less busy fire house.

Secretly, I was thinking, I will never get into 32. The captain that worked there had just gotten assigned there after waiting forever to get in. Besides, that officer lived only blocks away from this station. He would never leave. Well, you can probably hear it coming. 

Here’s what happened. After two weeks of praying this prayer in faith, the captain’s spot at Fire Station 25 opened up for bid. To my complete surprise, the Captain from Station 32 bid for the station and got it.  Now Station 32 was open for captain. I thought about not telling her and just not bidding for the station.  However, I knew God had answered her prayers.

She was elated when I told her that the station was open for captain.  I was number three on the captain’s seniority list. The top guy was at his dream station and would never leave, short of dying or retirement. The second guy on the list was the one who just bid out. That left only me.  I put in for the station and got it. My crew and my boss were almost as heartbroken as I was. I packed up all of my gear and equipment and moved into Fire Station 32. In the next section of the book, I will tell what happened after I left Station 1. Keep reading.  Once again, only God could have arranged these specific events to to happen in this specific order. To Him be all the glory!

Haynes, Ralph. THE BOOK OF MIRACLES: Things That Only God Could Have Done (p. 56). Kindle Edition.