Scripture verse strengthened fireman
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| n A verse from Psalm 46 helped Gerald Sillcocks through his fear |
NEW YORK, USA — Gerald Sillcocks of the New York Fire Department is no stranger to tragedy. In 1997 he and his wife suffered the death of a daughter. He was also on the scene when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. And his regular duties as a fireman often put him in the face of death.
But the attacks of September 11 are of a greater magnitude than even this brave firefighter had experienced before. But he cites his faith – and God’s Word – for giving him the strength to go through it.
“The part that Scripture played in this whole tragedy came to me one night when I was down at the World Trade Center,” he says. “We were assigned to an area where they had pulled 10 firemen out the evening before, and they knew they were probably going to find more guys that night. They needed another company to go up there, and we weren’t coming back until about three o’clock in the morning.
“The place we had to go was on top of the remains of one of the towers, and to get there you had to go through an area called ‘The Pit’. It was the worst place in this whole thing.”
The infamous Pit is an area where the foundations
had collapsed down into a hole two storeys deep, with rubble rising five
storeys high on one side and about ten storeys high on the other. The
only way to get across was to walk across ladders tied together. “You were literally walking on top of the ladders,” Mr Sillcocks
recalls, “and there was nothing to hold you.
“So you walked across these ladders and the only thing below
you was twisted steel, so if you fell off you were going to get hurt
real bad if not killed – impaled on some steel.
“When you came to the other side you met a ladder that was almost
vertical. It was at a twisted angle and there was nothing holding you
– no ropes, no harnesses, no anything. It was just ‘get up
there and get to work’.
“So you get to the top and there was a one-foot-wide steel beam
to stand on. Below you the fires were still burning. Our job that night
was to keep the fire under control and to pass tools up and pass whatever
bodies came down from a collapsed stairway.”
What Mr Sillcocks didn’t realise was that just behind him stood
12 storeys of unsupported steel wall. Then he turned around and saw
it.
“I turned around, took a
look at that wall leaning toward me, and every inch of me wanted to
run,” he admits. “I really started to panic a bit, because
if you work under unsupported steel beams like that, you’re just
asking for trouble. But I knew we had to be up there this night. There
was a dire need to get these bodies back to their families, even if
a fireman was lost.”
Mr Sillcocks says he was just about to tell his supervisor that they
should get out of that situation when he remembered the Bible passage
he and his wife had read two nights before.
“We were reading through Psalms, searching for some help to understand
this whole thing, when she read me Psalm 46. Then I read it, and verse
10 really hit me. I had no idea how much it would stick with me until
this night. The verse said, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’
“I turned around and looked at that beam, got a little scared
and at that moment I really believe God put that verse in my mind.
Twisted angle
Remembered
| “I turned around, took a look at that wall leaning toward me, and every inch of me wanted to run...I really started to panic a bit, because if you work under unsupported steel beams like that, you’re just asking for trouble.” |
“I went back to that Scripture, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ And I said, ‘He’s in control of this whole thing’. Even though standing up here on this tower, it’s a bad situation only looking worse, the fires are burning underneath you, the smoke is going into your eyes, and you don’t know what’s going to happen to this wall, I was able to stand there and do my job.”
That night, Mr Sillcocks and his company brought out three bodies. But equally important for him, he says, was understanding in a new way that “the Word has power”. He says that the events have also opened the hearts of those around him.
Protector
“Many of the guys in the fire house that have never opened a Bible in their life now know that Scriptures have answers,” he says. “They come to me to ask about God. So I’m able to take them to the Scriptures – powerful Scriptures – where God says he’s our protector, our strength, and our fortress.
“I show them that God is in control of this whole thing, and that he is here to comfort us and give us strength in this time.”
Of course, he says he also gets asked questions like ‘How could God let this happen?’ or ‘Where’s God in all this?’
“That lets me start right from where they’re at with their questions and lead them through the Gospel to show them that there is hope through Jesus Christ,” he says.
“The tragedy has happened, but the Bible says that what is meant for evil, he can turn into good. And that’s somewhat what’s happening right now.” (WR 365/4 - 12.01) [PHOTOS]