My Mother's Godwink

My mother became a believer when I was too young to understand, but I loved hearing the story.  I don't know all the details, and there is no one left to ask, but this is what I know.  She evidently prayed for assurance that God had heard her prayer for salvation.  Like Gideon in the Bible, she asked for a sign.  She didn't tell anyone that night, but she asked God to let her hear a fire siren in the morning to let her know that she was really saved. We lived in a small town in rural West Virginia -- population about 350 -- so we rarely heard the sound of a siren there since the nearest fire station was several miles away. And, like Gideon, she thought that could actually happen by coincidence, so she added one more requirement.  The second sign would be for my dad to ask her about the weather -- something that also was not common.  The next morning, she woke up to the sound of a siren, and Daddy turned over and asked her "What's the weather like today?" She said she "shouted all the way to Grandad's house!" Now, I guess that could have been a "coincidence" but you would never have been able to convince Mother that it was anything other than a direct message from God -- telling her that she really was His child.  Her faith remained unshakable for the rest of her life, and many, many lives were touched by her faith through some really hard times.  When her prayers for healing from breast cancer seemed to be unanswered, she said that she knew God heard the prayers of all the people who were praying for her, and she just had to trust His plan, even though it was not our desire. I think that "Godwink" she felt back in the '50's carried her through the rest of her life.