STUCK IN THE FRIDGE

I wish I had pictures or a video to show you.  But the only pictures of the event are taped haphazardly into the frazzled scrapbook of my failing memory. 

I was working as a paramedic on the only ambulance service in our county at that time.  The small crew of men and women worked long hours preforming life-saving procedures for victims of wrecks, shooting, heart attacks and everything in between. 

On this particular morning we received a call from a panic stricken mother crying that her daughter was stuck in a refrigerator.  As my partner maneuvered the ambulance through the streets of our little town we both could only picture in our minds what we might encounter when we arrived.  We imagined some child playing near an abandoned refrigerator and becoming locked inside without sufficient oxygen.   This might prove to be a very tragic situation.

As the ambulance screeched to a stop in front of the address given, the frantic mother stood on the sidewalk waving her hands and motioning us toward the house.  I grabbed the “jump bag” and headed in the door, through the living room and into the kitchen.  There I saw what proved to be one of them most comical sights I have ever seen. Let me see if I can paint it for you.

There in the kitchen was an old time refrigerator or what we called an “ice box”.  It was a refrigerator that had the aluminum freezer unit in the top.  This is where the aluminum ice trays were kept and a small amount of frozen food.  The mother had been defrosting the freezer that morning and had left the door open to aid in the process.  Somehow the little girl who was I guess 4 or 5 had pulled a chair up to the refrigerator and stuck her tongue to the aluminum unit.  As you can guess, it stuck fast to that surface. 

Mom had performed emergency measures such as throwing pans full of water from the sink onto the child with no success in freeing the poor child’s tongue.  The little girl stood there on the chair with both of her little hands against the refrigerator.  She was soaking wet, pushing as hard as she could and her little tongue looked like it had stretched about two feet.  Mom was crying, the little girl was crying, and it was all I could do not to double over laughing. 

I took a small syringe from the jump bag and walked over to the sink where I filled it with some water.  I reached in and squirted water directly on the tip of the little girls tongue. In response to the water placed just in the right place, the monstrous refrigerator immediately released its prey and the little girl was safe.  That was over 30 years ago and I can still see those events as if it were yesterday. 

If you think about it, events like this happen all the time. As humans, we see something we want to touch.  Oh, we might know that it is wrong and that we are not supposed to do it but just a little touch couldn’t hurt.  After all, we do not intend to climb into the refrigerator.  We will just touch it with our tongue and see what it’s like. 

Sure enough we find ourselves stuck and all of our pushing and pulling can’t free us from our captivity.  Friends and family might try to help us.  Dumping loads of “Christian water” onto our situation.  They invite us to church events and send us Christian books for Christmas or birthdays. We find ourselves soaked with religious-ness but still trapped in the cold frigid confines of sin. 

If we would call out to God, dial the heavenly 911 number, God will apply just the right amount of “living water” to just the right spot and we will be freed. 

I may be writing to someone today who is stuck in a seemingly inescapable situation.  You’ve tried everything.  You’ve pushed and pulled and thrown everything you can imagine at the problem with no results.  You stand there, soaked by your own efforts and the well-meaning efforts of others, yet still locked in. 

Why don’t you stop fighting and call 911?  Why don’t you ask God to apply His living water to the spot of your entrapment and walk away a free person?  He is waiting for your call.