He Rescued Me

Several weeks ago in Sunday School the lesson started with a discussion of the Martin & Willie handcart companies. After the teacher finished describing the circumstances that these pioneers faced, he asked a question:

Have you ever needed to be rescued?

The rest of the lesson was about the atonement of Jesus Christ, reminding us that we need the rescue that the atonement provides just as much as those pioneers needed to be rescued from their desperate situation.

For the rest of the day that question stayed in my mind.

Have you ever needed to be rescued?

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I am fairly capable person. If I had been asked that question at the beginning of the summer I might have had to to think hard to come up with an answer. Sure, there are many times I want to be rescued. I want Russ to rescue me from cranky kids or from the necessity of cooking dinner at the end of a hard day. I want a pleasant phone call to rescue me from the boredom of the moment. I want a mental health day at the beach to rescue me from the stress of every day life.

But I usually do not need to be rescued.

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Before our trip to Utah this summer I made a schedule. This schedule included a listing of activities that we hoped to be able to enjoy while there; dirt-biking, swimming, reunioning, camping, star-gazing, four-wheeling, etc.

I also planned to do some painting while we were in Utah. My dear friend Katie has wanted her family room/kitchen painted for a long time. Her ongoing medical problems don't leave any time or energy for random home improvement projects, so I decided that I wanted to do it for her.

Unfortunately for me, the time available to paint the house intersected with the mystery illness. I woke up on the first painting day with a high fever and a terrible cough. I knew that if I didn't get the first coat of paint on that day, the painting probably would not get done. So I took a lot of ibuprofen and filled my pockets with cough drops and got to work.

The first part of the day went ok. I wasn't feeling great, but I was making good progress. By lunch time, though, I could feel myself starting to wear down. I decided that I would fill the paint tray one more time and then when it was empty I would take a good nap so that I would have the energy to finish.

I went into the kitchen and picked up the small bucket that I had put the paint in, and carried it into the family room to pour it into the paint tray, which was sitting on the coffee table. Just as I started tipping the bucket to pour the paint, the handle of the bucket broke. The paint, probably at least 1/2 gallon, poured everywhere.

I think I was paralyzed by shock.

There was paint all over the coffee table, and even worse, all over the carpet.

I had no idea what to do.

I went over the options in my mind. I could call Katie, but she was on her way to an important doctor's appointment and wouldn't be able to help me. I could call Sean, but he was at work and would be joining Katie at her doctor's appointment. The last thing I wanted to do was freak out either of them before this appointment by telling them that I had spilled paint all over their carpet. So that option was out.

I stood frozen in panic for another minute. And then I had an idea. My dad lives about 30 minutes away from Katie, and he's retired. What's more, in another life he ran a small janitorial company and so he has more cleaning tools than most people. Maybe he could help me.

I called him, explained the situation quickly, and he said that he would come immediately.

As I waited for him to arrive I started cleaning off the coffee table. Fortunately for me the Sunday paper had not been cleaned up and still covered most of it. I carefully picked up and threw away each paint covered section and then began scrubbing the parts of the table that had not been covered. I felt sick and exhausted and overwhelmed at the mess I had (inadvertently) created.

My dad soon arrived with his carpet cleaner. He went to work right away, going over the paint stained area over and over and over again with the carpet cleaner. My dad cleaned that piece of Katie's carpet--probably no more than 8 square feet, for more than an hour and a half. He patiently filled, emptied, and refilled the cleaner again and again, until finally the water extracted from the carpet was completely clear and there was no hint of paint anywhere.


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I've thought about this experience a great deal since that day in Sunday School. Even though I knew conceptually how I might get the paint out of the carpet, there was no way I could do it myself. I was sick and in an unfamiliar town. It didn't matter that I am normally a capable and independent person.

I needed to be rescued.


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I think I needed this experience. I needed to experience that moment of realization that I, on my own, was lost. That I had created a mess I would never be able to fix on my own.

I needed to see my father's love for me in action. Both because it warmed the cockles of my little heart, and because it reminded me that my Heavenly Father is also willing and waiting to drop everything and give me the help I need in my hour of need.

I needed to begin to understand more clearly that no matter how careful or intelligent or able I am, I will always need to be rescued.

And more than that, that the whole point is not to keep trying to save myself, but instead to learn to depend on the rescue that the Savior has already offered.