All during the week after the passing of Princess Diana, I had been feeling sad. I was surprised at how much the event had affected me. The focus at our Wednesday night church meeting that week was on the realities of Life and the unreality of death. This helped a lot, but I still felt sad whenever I saw her picture or heard more news.
On Saturday, my husband and I were canning fruit, and our children (ages nine and twelve) were helping for the first time. As the four of us were busy washing jars, peeling fruit, and singing along with the radio, my husband called for help at the stove. He had begun to lift a heavy load of jars into the big pot of boiling water and found it was about to overflow. He asked me to take some of the water out. I grabbed the closest bowl (it was a glass one) and a measuring cup and began quickly ladling water out. Just as I was wondering how I was going to carry this full bowl of water to the sink, the bowl exploded in my hands, shooting glass and boiling water all over the kitchen. None of us had thought about the fact that I was putting boiling water into glass. I was in pain like I have never felt before from the boiling water, and I went and stood in the bathtub, running cold water on my feet, crying and praying loudly, while my husband called a Christian Science practitioner. My daughter got her copy of the Bible and of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy and began reading to me. It helped calm me. When I talked with the practitioner, she told me not to expect the cold water to heal anything, so I got out of the tub!
The pain was screaming, and for a couple of hours I prayed as vehemently as I could. Several times I called the practitioner, but could hardly talk through the pain and tears. She was calm, and reassured me that God cares for me. I wanted to hear such truths, but was having trouble feeling convinced of them.
