An act of Divine intervention
By Tim Frodsham, 10 January 2021
The operator working our logging tower gave me a sage piece of advice. “Never try to explain what you are doing here; no one will understand.” True no doubt, but it is a piece of advice I have to ignore. We were working a one hundred ten foot logging tower in the Olympic Mountain Range west of Seattle, Washington.
It was the early 1970s, the last years the big logging companies were allowed to work the virgin timber of the Olympic Peninsula. Each tower was surrounded by a web of cables and rigging spanning over a mile of steep canyon in some of the most rugged mountains in the world. Having graduated from a high school on the Peninsula, I worked summers as a chokerman in order to pay for college. Up and down the mountain we would run all day long; down and under the rigging we wrapped cables around the next turn of logs.
We dashed out and up as the rigging was lifted and the logs reeled to the landing, then back again, turn after turn. It was years later, watching a documentary on the ten most dangerous jobs in the world that I discovered my job was number two, second only to those working on the deck of an aircraft carrier.
I was told at the beginning of one season that there was a five week wait for an opening. That was an eternity for a student desperate to earn college funds during the summer. I was called in the next day to replace one of the chokermen who had been struck and killed by a cable the day before, (about the time I was in the office looking for a job).
I had been praying earnestly for employment, and it was with a humble and troubled heart that I thanked the Lord for the work, and prayed that the death of that young man was not a part of His answer. During those summers in the woods, several of my high school friends also had close calls working in the forest. One became paralyzed from the waist down after being crushed between two logs.
Several days after my ”five week wait,” we had worked to a spot where the steep canyon walls turned into vertical cliffs with a small stream thirty feet below. Two logs that were eight feet in diameter had fallen directly across the stream. Perched precariously across the shear walls, there was no way to wrap choker cables around them in preparation to be pulled to the logging tower.
The rigging boss came up with a very clever solution, and it didn’t involve risking his life or limb at all. The rest of the crew lowered me between those two logs: first because I was the skinniest, and second, I was also the newest member of the crew. Suspended between the logs, an elbow braced on each and my feet dangling above that thirty foot chasm, the rigging boss would swing the cables underneath and I would catch them with my foot and lift them up so that another crew member could grab them.
They had just lowered me into position and were ready to swing cables when the emergency siren blasted from the tower hundreds of feet above us. The cat operator was cleaning the landing and inadvertently pushed a large root ball over the edge, which was tumbling in our direction. Not a small chunk of wood, but the immense stump of a Douglas fir was pounding down the steep slope above us.
Through the logs, I could feel the earth shutter with each impact. The crew scattered for the safety of the opposite canyon wall, leaving me hanging helplessly. By the time they realized what they had done, it was too late to dash back to lift me from between the massive trunks. I watched, at first helplessly, as that wooden mass pounded its way down the abrupt slope. Had I panicked and tried to extricate myself, I would have surely fallen to the rocks thirty feet below and been critically injured or killed. Instead, a spirit came over me, clamping me gently but firmly in position and holding me completely immobile.
As that mammoth projectile thundered toward me, I had an incomprehensible feeling of peace and tranquility. That day I was held, figuratively and I believe literally, in the hands of my Savior. The huge stump impacted and teetered on a ledge fifty feet above me, then settled back into position. The spirit slowly lifted, and I was left with a lingering joy. It was several minutes before a sheepish crew finally came back to complete the task of cabling up these two enormous logs and extricate me from the gap between.
I think they were surprised not to receive a richly deserved Scotch blessing; I could not be angry after receiving such a powerful manifestation of the Love of God. On days when I feel separated from my Savior by thoughts and feelings that He does not care and I am left alone, I remember His embrace and His precious spirit breathing peace and comfort to my soul during an experience that would otherwise have been terrifying and even deadly.
I do not know why the Lord chooses at times to intervene so actively and completely in our lives for our physical and spiritual well-being, and other times He seems so distant and uncaring. Many times since, I have prayed earnestly for the health of a child, or for the life of my cancer-ridden wife to be spared, only to feel that those prayers seem to bounce off a ceiling of brass.
I do know that He is the Master of the universe. His infinite wisdom is far beyond my finite mind to comprehend. He answers my prayers always, even if I do not feel His embrace or see the results of His interventions. I am grateful for His comforting spirit which held me so solidly both spiritually and physically during that most dangerous time in my life. For a brief moment, I understood what it means to trust Him.
Copyright 2021, Tim Frodsham, latterdaysaints.life
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