Previous Challenge Entry
Topic: Breaking the Rules (08/16/04)
TITLE: It’s On Fire! By Annette Agnello 08/19/04 |
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I was somewhere between ten and thirteen years old and I loved candle light. It was beautiful, it had a warmth, it had movement, and it made me feel grown-up. I could light a candle without doing anything really wrong, my parents said don’t play with matches but lighting a candle wasn’t playing. That was a rule for a baby and I wasn’t a baby anymore.
There was a TV in my parents room and I saw no problem about burning candles when I was watching TV. I had a candle and I was sitting on the floor by the bed so I could easily hide my disobedience, my sin, I thought...
I guess I was being too quiet and mom started coming upstairs to check on me. I didn’t want to have to light another match but I still wanted the candle lit so I stuck it under the bed.
Mom hadn’t even got to the door when I was screaming, “It’s on FIRE!”
No matter how old a mother is hearing those words can let Mother’s put on a real burst of speed.
“What?” she said rounding the corner. It started out, “What’s on fire,” and became, “What’s going on?” Mother’s have a way to get a lot of mileage out of one word.
She got water from the bathroom and started trying to put out the burning blanket and mattress and box springs. Acrylic melts, the corner of the blanket was ruined; the mattress was hard to put out you had to keep throwing water up inside. A king sized bed was too heavy to turn over and the burn was on the bottom because I had shoved a lit candle underneath the bed. The corner of the new bed, hardly a month old was a mess the blanket was melted on the corner, mom was hotter than the fire with anger. I had disobeyed her. I had done something very dangerous. I had disappointed her.
God didn’t make a mistake by putting, “Honor your father and mother...” in the Bible. Just as my parents didn’t make a mistake about fire. Even when you start to grow up there are some things you have to treat with respect. Fire, traffic, parents, God all deserve respect and, you can’t ignore what the rules they are there for a reason.