Take the Skillet off the Stove
George Davison was one of many black American soldiers to land on the Normandy beaches on D-Day. He was a member of a barrage balloon battalion responsible for protecting the invasion beaches from air attack. These soldiers had to go in under fire and operate from foxholes on the beach. Their balloons were tethered to cables designed to keep enemy aircraft above strafing altitude along the shoreline.
Davison was a very religious man, and his spiritual strength came through in letters to his wife, Mary, and son, Richard. He told them, “I have been to church and Sunday school and asked for forgiveness of everything I (have) ever done to anyone and prayed… After laying in my hole in the ground and listening to bullets go over my head bursting beside me, not more than reaching distance away, I have come to the conclusion that there is one with more power than the walking, would stand by me and see me home again.”440
He especially felt God’s hand supporting him at the crucial moments when he approached the beach in a landing craft filled with ammunition:
As a truck went down the ramp, I grabbed on to the racks and this truck went out of sight so I let go… So there I am in that water, with too much weight, so I shrugged my shoulders and off went my musette bag… all the time this was happening the enemy was putting down a steady stream of cross fire, we were let off in to deep waters. I believe the Lord was on my side because if he would have let just one of those tracers hit those 105 howitzer shells it would have been all over. You could have taken the skillet off the stove cause the gas would have been gone!441
It is inspiring to hear the story of a soldier’s simple faith during a dangerous time. His belief in a caring God sustained him on the beaches of Normandy and is the kind of faith that will sustain each of us through any crisis.
Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens… Our God is a God who saves; from the sovereign Lord comes escape from death.
—Psalms 68:19, 20