Lisa and Lana Holmes loved activity. They were busy little girls. They also had very short attention spans. Just after their second birthday the twins sat at a play station in a corner of their family’s farm kitchen working with play-dough. They were content for the time being.
Their mother stood nearby washing dishes. Seeing that the girls were happily occupied she stepped momentarily out of the kitchen to answer the call of nature. When Delores Holmes returned to the kitchen a few minutes later, a wave of panic swept over her. Lisa and Lana were gone. The door to the porch leading outside was wide open.
Delores followed the clue and ran quickly after them—looking into the girls’ playhouse, checking the swings and sandbox, searching desperately. But the girls were nowhere to be found. In anxious prayer, Delores lifted her arms and eyes to heaven and frantically cried, “Lord, help me!” Then incredibly she spotted Lisa and Lana bouncing around on top of a freshly piled haystack, giggling with sheer joy. They were blissfully unaware of the danger of their latest risky escapade. Delores prayed again, this time for the girls’ protection and for her own clear thinking under pressure.
Glancing at the ladder leaning against the haystack, Delores realized that she’d have to climb to the top herself to rescue her twins. It was July, 1952—haying season. Her husband and a crew of other men had gone back to the fields after lunch to haul in more hay. She knew instinctively that she’d have to secure both squirming toddlers and carry them down the ladder at the same time. Otherwise the child left behind would try to come down by herself and fall.
There was no time to waste. Delores scrambled to the top of the ladder and gently got the girls’ attention. She told them to sit still in the middle of the haystack and listen carefully. Then she called Lisa to come to her outstretched arms reaching between two rungs of the ladder.
As she pulled Lisa through the tiny space feet first, she told her to wrap her legs tightly around her mother’s waist and her arms tightly around her mother’s neck. “Hold on for dear life,” she said. “Don’t let go.”
Leaning in and grasping the ladder with tense nerves and taut, white knuckles Delores thrust her free arm through the small space again and signaled for Lana to come to her [Psalm 56:3 ESV]. Trusting in the Lord’s power to keep them safe Delores pulled Lana through the small opening as she had done with Lisa.
She told Lana, “Put your arms around Lisa’s legs and my tummy, then hold as still as you can. Don’t wiggle. I will hold you tightly under my arm so you won’t fall. With my other arm and hand I’ll hold on to the ladder. Step by step, we’ll all get back down together.”
A few minutes later all three of them stood safely and securely on solid ground. Delores breathed a sigh of relief and a prayer of thanks to God for his protection throughout the rescue. “It’s hot out here in the sun,” she said, walking hand in hand between her adventuresome toddlers. “Let’s go inside and make some iced lemonade. We need to have a little talk, and then it will be time for your naps.”
The lunch dishes for the harvest crew were still not done, but Delores didn’t really care. She was emotionally drained and exhausted. With a song in her heart and thanksgiving on her lips, she kicked off her shoes and took an afternoon nap, too.