middle third of his face smashed. For five days he dripped spinal fluid from his nose, and bled from his eyes for a week. Doctors mar veled that he hadn’t been killed instantly. Only one month before—it was my husband, welding hood pushed back on his head, who looked from the cover of Christian Life magazine. The caption inside ex plained: “ Rugged A1 Bulle, own er of an ornamental iron works in Arizona, and husband of Flor ence Bulle, author of ‘All Things in Common’, illustrates on this month’s cover how he puts his welding know-how to work at Bethany Fellowship.” However, it should have read past owner, for all those bridges were burned behind us a year- and-a-half before when we moved to Bethany to prepare for the mission field. With our family of five, Beth any had a distinct advantage. All students were assigned jobs. We worked to pay for our room and board. We trusted the Lord for all personal needs. Most impor tant, we knew Bethany was God’s choice for us. The day A1 was hurt, I was shielded from what had happened until he was on his way to the hospital. After a call informed me he would be in surgery for some time, I sat staring out at the campus. It was bitterly cold out side. But there, in my room alone, my heart was aglow with the presence of the Lord: He simply enfolded me in His love. I knew Al’s life was in jeopardy, yet my heart was at peace! “Al’s life is in My hands and I know what I’m doing with him,” the Lord told me. The Holy Spirit helped me to recall pertinent words our pas tor, the Rev. Harold J. Brokke, preached many months before: “The only safe realm is that which is totally committed to the Lord.” My husband’s life was committed to the Lord—the acci dent hadn’t changed that. I knew A1 was safe!
Couldn’t Forget
b y F l o r e n c e B u l l e
one we were expecting in less than four months. Having our three boys already, A1 felt the Lord had promised him a daugh ter! His spirits were high when he kissed me good-by to go back to work. I settled down to nap; ev erything was so right! Twenty-five minutes later it happened. He was cutting the ends from some supposedly empty steel bar rels — a customary procedure since they were used for storing spare parts. “ To have suspected there was fluid, let alone gasoline in the sec ond, was as remote as suspecting a bomb in my lunch pail,” he told me later from his hospital bed. The moment his torch had cut a pinhole through the steel top, the drum exploded in his face! Besides a brain concussion and deep facial cuts, one hand and arm were terribly burned: X rays later showed every bone in the
| n e e d e d s l e e p d e s p e r a t e ly , b u t still I tossed through the long night. “ Lord, take away my bit terness and resentment,” I cried. But even then I was short-circuit ing my prayer by thinking that after what had happened, I had a right to be resentful. It was the same night after night. First, played upon the screen of my mind, was my hus band’s face as he had looked when I first saw him in the hospi tal’s intensive care unit after the accident. Then I re-lived all the desperate hours that followed. And through it all tumbled peo ple’s off-hand remarks and ques tions I could not answer. While we were students at Bethany Fellowship Missionary Training Institute, Bloomington, Minn., Al’s work assignment was the welding shop. On Friday, March 8, 1963, since I was hav ing to stay in bed for a few days, he had brought my lunch. We had chatted gaily about the little
AUGUST, 1966
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