Is Gods Presence With Us Always?   Author: 1270  Category:(Angels) Created:(10/21/1999 1:28:00 PM) This post has been Viewed (1739 times) This is a happening that some call miracles or unexplained events that touched our lives last March. After reading some of the stories on this website I had to share this with you. I live outside a small town in western North Carolina with my wife and two kids. We moved here a year ago from the coast of South Carolina and enjoy the surroundings. We rent the home we live in, which is also for sale by our landlord. It's a wood 'A-Frame' house nested in the woods on about 1.8 acres. A large wooden deck surrounds our home on all but one side. In the living room is a large stone fireplace with a woodburning stove inserted in it which we use quite often for warming the house in cold weather. Last winter we burned a lot of wood in it to keep us warm and we enjoyed sitting and watching the fire burn in the evenings. One evening in mid March, it was just the wife and myself at home with our dogs watching an evening show on the TV. My wife had just added more wood to the fire to build it up for a long nights burn, as we usually do when the cold sets in here in the mountains. After a short time I noticed a huge roaring sound which seemed to me like low flying aircraft. I questioned this with her and we both shrugged our shoulders. When it didn't go away I began to really worry what was going on. I just had severely injured my left knee for the second time around a couple of weeks past and wasn't getting around so well at the time, so I sent the wife outside to check things out. She returned frantic. 'The chimney was shooting large embers out everywhere' she remarked. We had a chimney fire! I immediately went to the woodstove, closed the doors and shut it down. We were scared to death. The wife wanted me to run a hose in the house and douse it. I was hoping closing things up would do the job. After a few minutes the noise subsided. I went out and watched as the chimney continued gushing large redhot embers out that cooled down as they landed. I returned into the house and notices that the top of the steel back over the woodstove was glowing red and watched it cool down. We didnt burn anymore wood that evening. We would have burnt to death if we were asleep when this was happening. I called a friend of mine that evening who had years of experience with fireplaces. This happened to be our pastor as well. He told me things would be ok for the night but it might be a good idea to check out the fireplace and chimney. During the week I used some stove black to go over things until I could get some help with the stove removal. The following weekend we had a few of the youth group kids from our church at our house and they helped my brother inlaw and myself to remove this cast iron stove to check and clean out things. When we removed it what a mess of creosote we found. All cleaned up well and was put back like nothing ever happened. The following Monday my wife called me downstairs. She had noticed something strange on the black side panel of the stove insert. We both stared for a while and the more we looked the more we were seeing. The image of Christ was there like it was painted in grey on the panel. What is vivid is his hands holding what appears to be a fruit like an apple, as if he is giving it. The fruit and stem very pronounced. He has a cloth vail that covers his head and shoulders. His forehead, eyebrows, cheekbones, hair and beard are all there. His eyes are not so vivid although I can make out his right eye fairly well. I ran upstairs and grabbed an art pad and spent the rest of the day drawing him. We were totally amazed. Was this the work of all the hands helping us? Or is God doing this? I tried to duplicate his hands thinking they were formed by handprints and find it impossible to locate my hands against his in the same way. That morning, I called our pastor and told him to come to my house that there was something he needed to see. When he arrived I sat him down on our couch and showed him what I was drawing and than pointed to the fireplace. He saw him right off. "Oh wow, what an amazing thing" he said. Our pastor told us that God doesn't always reveal himself to people, and sometimes when he does it is in different ways. I still have my drawing. I've shared the image on the fireplace with some close friends and family. Some see him like I do, some don't. It's ok. I believe if your heart is really open to him you'll see him. Maybe not like I do, maybe not here in my home, but I promise you, you will see him. To this day no one has removed his image. He will be there for a while. How it changed my life: I was never a real strong christian in the past. My life has had great turns and wonderous experiences. Good friends, careers. etc. Several times in my life I have been snatched from death for unexplained reasons. The last ten years, with the downfalls and real bad experiences that have swept through our family I often wondered if there was a God and if he was really there, would he help us out of things. I wondered why his answers never came the way I wanted them to. I asked him several times in despiration to show himself to me if he was really there. He never did before, and I wondered, why? Maybe you dont know if there is a God or he is listening when we need his help. I don't care what all the great minds of our world say about where we come from or what their answers to all the mysteries in life are. I don't wonder anymore. He's always there. To all readers: Thanks for your replies to this. It's heartwarming to know that he does exist and is there for us. For images or more info on this please see my reply below. Thanks and Godbless. You can join Unsolved Mysteries and post your own mysteries or interesting stories for the world to read and respond to Click here Scroll all the way down to read replies. Show all stories by   Author: 1270 ( Click here ) Spring is coming