Our toddler had fallen into the pond, but we never could figure out how she got out…

We were standing in my parents’ front yard saying goodbye when we heard her scream; it was our daughter, two and a half. Rushing to the backyard, we found Helen standing in the center of the flagstone sidewalk, crying and dripping wet. It was apparent she’d fallen into my parents’ small but deep fishpond. Thank God she was safe!

Then, as my wife rushed over to pick Helen up, it hit me. I couldn’t see any wet footprints anywhere around the pond, yet our baby was standing a good 20 feet away from the water. The only water was the puddle where she stood dripping. And there was no way a toddler could have climbed out of the pool by herself; it was six or seven feet in diameter and about four feet deep.

As Helen grew up, we often puzzled over those strange circumstances. She herself had no memory of the event. She was however, haunted by an intense fear of water. Many years later, when Helen and her soldier husband were living in San Antonio, she began to work through that fear with the help of an Army chaplain, Pastor Claude Ingram.

After spiritual counseling and prayer sessions, he asked her to go back in memory and relive the frightening fishpond experience. She put herself in the scene again and began describing the pond and the fish in detail. She cried out as she relived the moment of falling into the water.

Then suddenly Helen gasped. “Now I remember! He grabbed me by the shoulders and lifted me out!” “Who did?” asked Pastor Ingram. “Someone in white,” she answered. “Someone pulled me out and then left.” Someone who not only saved my daughter but helped her get over her fear years later too.