Description
He Hears Our Prayers
September 1921, near Duncan Arizona. Orson Oriel Richins was driving along a primitive desert road in a Model T Ford with his four-year-old grandson Sidney. The road was muddy from the rain that had fallen the day before and the car became stuck in the mud. Seeing a ranch about ¾ of a mile away, Orson decided to walk to it and see if he could borrow a shovel to dig the car out. He warned young Sidney to stay in the car. The brush was tall and thick and filled with wild animals. If Sidney wandered away from the car he might never be found.
Orson made the walk and obtained a shovel with which he was able to get the car out. He decided to walk the shovel back to the ranch rather than drive, because of the mud.
As he made his back to the car, he worried about Sidney. He decided to take a shortcut, when suddenly the ground gave way beneath is feet and he found himself suspended on old rotten boards over an abandoned well. He swung his legs and tried to reach the sides of the well, but it was too far. He tried to wiggle forward, but the old boards cracked and bent beneath his weight. He could not move. He tried for some time to free himself but all to no avail, he was trapped.
The longer he struggled the more concerned he became for Sidney waiting in the car. What would happen if he climbed out of the car and went looking for his grandpa? Orson’s daughter records the following:
“Father was gravely concerned about his predicament, for he seemed doomed to fall in the old abandoned well to his death. He realized the danger of his young grandson Sidney, alone in the car in a wild and brushy country. What would happen to him if he got out of the car and wandered away in the tall brush? He would never be found and would be lost forever. In this anxiety, father prayed humbly for some time and, with anguish, called upon the Lord to be freed from this awful peril, and to deliver him so he could go to his young grandson. While praying for his grandson’s safety, father poured out his heart humbly and in earnest prayer to the Lord for Sidney’s safety and protection.”
And then a remarkable thing happened.
“Father recalls only that he awoke and found himself lying on the ground near the well where he had been dangling. He never knew how he ever got out of the well, or how long he had been lying on the ground unconscious.”
It had been about noon when he had returned the shovel and now it was late the afternoon. Orson crawled away from the old well and then got to his feet and hurried anxiously to the car, praying as he went that Sidney would be safe. Upon reaching the car, he found the lad sound asleep in the back. Orson knelt beside the car and offered up a prayer of thanksgiving.
That experience became sacred to Orson and he was reluctant ever after to speak of it, but “He taught his children to have faith in our Heavenly Father as He hears our prayers and answers them.”
Source: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWZJ-RZD
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=rm&ogbl&zx=avmyk7a744pg#inbox/FMfcgzGqPpjZvLgJTCVxqFkVxDmCMsNw
Story told by Shellie Gardener of her great grandfather, Orson Oriel Richins.
