Quoting from his book in the Arms of His Love, Steven A. Cramer passes on a miraculous rescue. . . .
George Rivera was working on his car one cold December morning when he became aware of a disturbance down the street. As he rounded the corner to investigate, he found a crowd of frenzied people staring at a tenement building engulfed in flames. Some of them were shouting and waving their arms and some were just standing there, crying helplessly. As he ran nearer he could see their terror. There were two little girls stranded on the fourth floor. He could barely see them amid the choking black clouds that surged out of the window, but he could hear their terrified screams: “Help! Help! Get us down!”
Concerned as much as if they were his own daughters, George tried to enter the building but was driven back by the intense heat. Someone found a ladder but it only reached the second floor. He realized that something had to be done immediately or they would die. Surprised by the sound of his own voice, he found himself shouting, “Jump, jump! I’ll catch you.”
You’re crazy, man,” someone shouted at him. “They’ll kill you if they land on you. That’s a forty-foot drop! Wait for the fire truck!” Someone else added, “You could kill them if they land on you or if you drop them or miss them. Don’t be a fool.”
But George knew there was no time to wait. The smoke was getting thicker and thicker every second. “Jump, jump!” he yelled again to the girls who were almost invisible in the black smoke. Desperately he prayer, “Lord, give those the courage to jump. Lord send them strait into my arms and give me the strength to catch them.”
Suddenly one of the girls came hurtling down toward George. With a tremendous thud, the forty-five pound girl crashed into his outstretched arms and chest. He buckled, but held onto her as they fell to the sidewalk together. Miraculously, both George and the girl were unharmed. George looked back for the second girl but she was lost in the smoke. He knew she could not see him because he could not see her. “Don’t let me miss her”, he prayed. He felt impressed to move backward a few feet. “Now you jump,” he called into the black smoke. “I caught your sister. Don’t be afraid.”
She jumped.
The impact of her sixty pounds plummeting from forty feet sent George reeling onto the sidewalk again, but he held her firmly in his arms, breaking the dangerous fall.
Everyone in the crowd talked at once, asking “Are you alright?” Are you alright? The two girls held each other, crying with relief. At the hospital George and the two girls were pronounced safe and without injury.
Later, looking back on the incredible rescue, George said, “I came across the verse, ‘The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. (Deuteronomy 33:27.) It answered my question as to how I could have caught those two girls as they dropped from such a height, and where I got the strength and courage. Somehow I know that underneath my own arms are the arms of the everlasting God, holding me, keeping Pamela and April safe.” (See Guideposts 1979, 15-16.)
No matter how far we have fallen, we are never beyond the reach of the Savior’s arms of deliverance. No matter how unseen, no matter how unlikely or impossible rescue may appear, His arms of deliverance have the power to save us when we place our faith in Him.
In praise of the Savior’s arms of Deliverance, Jeremiah said, “thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee.” (Jeremiah 32:17.) Lucifer would have us believe that our enemies are too strong to overcome and that we are trapped beyond the reach of Christ’s to deliverance. But Jesus has promised that if we sincerely do our best to obey, “he shall deliver you out of the hand of all your enemies. (2 Kings 17:39.) Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. (Jeremiah 1:8.)
Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed. (Doctrine & Covenants 123;17.)
This quote from Steven A. Cramer’s book “In the Arms of His Love” ~~~Steven A Cramer, (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2007), p.86-88.
