Welcome to God Stories
Joining us are Wes Hargrove and his wife, Raquel, in the Maryville, Tennessee, area. Their family of five recently escaped a raging fire which entirely destroyed their home, but not their faith.
The Hargroves are still dealing with all this, but have a silver lining story to share about God's faithfulness!
"So, that evening I was out there mowing. Where we live, it's two acres of land. So, I was mowing, it was a John Deere 48-inch deck mower. And there's certain spots where it gets bogged down. And I believe that there was probably a patch of grass that got probably stuck on the deck. Didn't realize this until after the fact. So, I was just mowing and then whenever I got done, I was like, okay, there's a shed that I park it under and I do it the same way. I've done it a hundred times, no different. And so, I parked it and went into the house and it was about the time that we were getting ready to go do our Sunday evening job...and by that time, whenever I turned around, I noticed a big smell, smelled like burnt electricity. And I looked and there was this big orange glow through the window. I ran outside, ran around, and noticed it was a pretty large flame. Went and grabbed the water hose. Now already it didn't have much pressure, and I'm sitting here trying to use my thumb, the old trick, you put your thumb to try to create pressure, and it still wasn't enough. And it just kept spreading. And Raquel, my wife, she said, 'It's getting on the siding and it's going another direction as well.' And as much as we kept trying, it just kept getting out of control. And by that time, we knew it was enough to call the fire department," Wes and Raquel explain.
But the house was lost.
(Richard asks) So, once you could get inside the remainder of your home, you found some kind of encouraging surprises. Tell us what you found.
"So, as I was walking through the house, one of the things I noticed was a cross that was... now, mind you, there was a cross that was on the wall, but it wasn't of any type of high quality. It was just something cheap that was from Temu, like a paperwood, really cheap - paperboard cross, which I would've though would've been ate up really easy from the fire, but yet there was a embedded cross in very good shape that was still left onto that wall. And going a little bit further, then I noticed that there was intact Bibles, which actually I have the Bible right here with me, and this is actually the Bible that I saw. And as you can tell in the pictures, you can't make out hardly anything, but yet here's a Bible, as you can see, and you can individually turn these pages. To me, that shows a major significance that the Word cannot be destroyed. And it wasn't just one Bible we found. In each room of our house, we found a Bible in the living room and in all three bedrooms, there was a Bible found. And that wasn't the only Bibles we had in the house, but it was like God showing us in each room: 'I was there in each room with y'all. My word cannot be destroyed. My promises cannot be destroyed.'"
God spared their daughter, Chloe
"And with our daughter, our youngest daughter, God did spare her because she wouldn't even be here today. She had went into our bathroom to take a shower and how our bathroom is, you have to go through our bedroom to get to the bathroom. And the first thing to catch fire was my bathroom and my bedroom. That's where the shed was behind, and that was the first thing to catch fire. There's literally nothing left in our bathroom. Even the bathtub is gone. It's nothing, just ash. She says, 'Yeah, I went to take a shower in there, mom, and I took my clothes off. I just stood there.' She says, 'I don't know why I just stood there. Then I decided to put my pants back on and go back to my bedroom and sit on my bed.' Yeah, she's pretty straightforward. I mean, if she's going to go do something, she's going to go and do it. So, just even that alone is really not something Chloe, our daughter, would do. So it's as if maybe she had a nudge from God."
Here's our entire encouraging interview with Wes and Raquel Hargrove. In this podcast, they share a very personal moment of faith involving the loss of their family dog, Lucy. And how God personally and directly gave them assurance about Lucy. And we learn about elements from a Nativity scene that miraculously survived.
Give a listen.
The Hargroves did not have renter's insurance. They're getting help from friends, but there's a lot to be done.
