I AM NOT ALONE

A Story of Faith and Heavenly Father’s Love written by Tonia Loveland

I’m sitting in Louisville, Kentucky for the last time until I don’t know when. I’ll miss this sacred place—my old Kentucky home. 

Twenty-eight years ago, I was a young mother of two little boys and wife of a busy second year dental student attending the University of Louisville.

April 7, 1996 was Easter Sunday. The boys had found their Easter baskets and eggs, we had gone to church, and my husband had been at our dining table for hours working with a Bunsen burner on a project due the next day. That evening we watched an episode of 60 Minutes in which a man had been in a serious boating accident and caught on fire. Miraculously, only part of his legs were burned. I turned to my husband and said, “That is such a neat story.”

Four hours later, the boys were asleep in bed and my husband was still at the dining room table working on the denture he was making. I joined him there and did my fingernails as we talked about what a good day it had been. I headed to the kitchen to wash my hands. After washing them, I turned around and out of nowhere, my bare legs were covered in large blue flames. I yelled to my husband to get me a blanket. Why was he ignoring me? Couldn’t he see that I was on fire? I got to the carpet and stopped, dropped, and rolled. I confidently got up expecting the flames to be gone, but there they were, just as they had been before I dropped to the floor. It was terrifying- I was on fire! 

What if I couldn’t get the flames out? Would I watch myself burn to death? I looked across the room and saw an heirloom blanket I had just cross stitched and quilted for a future daughter to use with her dolls! Knowing it was myself or the blanket, I began pressing it all over my legs until the flames were gone. I had done it. What a sense of relief. 

I tried to call the fire department, but the phone line wouldn’t work. I ran across the hall and told my neighbor to call 911 and tell them that there had been a fire and I had been burned. Knowing help would be on the way, I jumped in the shower, turned on the cold water and paced back and forth. After a couple minutes, I glanced down at my legs and saw that I had several four inch blisters from just above my knees down to my feet. Without a moment of hesitation, my lips uttered, “Heavenly Father. Thank you for such a beautiful miracle.” I had just experienced the same miracle as the man I had heard from a few hours earlier: parts of my body were spared.

I heard my husband call my name and it was a strange feeling knowing I wanted him to find me and check on me, yet I didn’t want him to see what had happened to my legs. When I heard him walk through the bathroom door, I held the shower curtain closed and peeked my head around so that he couldn’t see the rest of me. He asked, “How are you?” while trying to pull back the curtain. “I’m fine. I am. It’s a beautiful miracle.” Then, reluctantly, I pulled back the shower curtain so that he could see my legs. 

He then told me that the Bunsen burner had gotten low on alcohol, so he began refilling it using a paper cup. With the flame still going, the cup of alcohol caught on fire and began to burn his finger. Without thinking, he threw the cup of alcohol back to the kitchen sink behind him. Flames were all over the kitchen and around the table, along with the top of the gallon jug of alcohol. He had been busy putting flames out himself not knowing that I too had had flames of my own. We had both been oblivious to what the other was experiencing. 

That night I was taken by ambulance to the University of Louisville Hospital and admitted to the burn unit where I would spend the next fifteen days. I had said so many prayers from the moment I had seen my burned legs. From thanking God for “this beautiful miracle,” to pleading and begging for help when the pain was excruciating. I prayed before and after surgery, through procedures, after flashbacks. I found myself asking why fire was created, feeling alone, and wondering when I would be able to care for myself and walk again.

Throughout my youth I was taught that I was a child of God, that I was a daughter of God, and that He loved me. I liked how I felt when I heard and recited those words. I believed them.

I remember laying in my hospital bed one night feeling so unbelievably alone. My room didn’t have a phone, my husband was in his most demanding semester of school with finals and boards quickly approaching, and my family was clear across the country. I was desperate to pour my heart out to someone and tell them what I had been going through the last few days.  I thought of the other patients in the burn unit. Were they in similar situations? What if they did not know of God or believe He was there? How in the world were they even surviving without hope and faith in a loving God? My heart ached for them. So, I decided to pray. Through tears, I pleaded with my Heavenly Father to watch over them and be with them.

As I prayed for those burn victims, my prayer changed from believing God was there to knowing God was there. I came to know I was a daughter of a Heavenly Father that loved me, that He knew me personally by name, that He was aware of me in bed number 8 in the UofL Hospital burn unit, and what I was going through and experiencing. I knew that I wasn’t, nor ever really had been, alone. He had always been there listening to every single prayer I had said.

That moment was life changing. 

The days and months that followed were humbling as I continued to witness miracle after miracle.

My legs were once engulfed in large blue flames that caused excruciating pain and required multiple skin grafts  for me to heal.  Now, my scars remind me of miracles, covenants,  goodness, earthly and heavenly angels, and my relationship with my Heavenly Father; they are beautiful to me. Knowing  God knows me by name, that I am His child, that He is aware of me and what I’m going through, and that I am never alone, has brought me so much peace and comfort.

“But now thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and he that formed thee, O Israel, Fear not: for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” (Isaiah 43:1-2)

This August, years after this experience, I found myself leading my family through the rapidly declining health of my sweet mom. At one point, I needed to step out of the ICU and cry. Every one of my siblings were there along with all of their spouses. Most grandchildren were able to be there to say goodbye as well. It had been sweet and tender as I held some through their tears, loved on others, and in a way, directed traffic to see my mom. I noticed that I was the only person there from my family of nineteen and growing. I was suddenly jealous of my siblings. 

Tragically, my husband and children were unable to make it to the hospital to say goodbye; I felt abandoned and resentful. There I was, leading my family through the hardest and most difficult thing in our lives, and I was all alone watching my literal angel on earth die. 

I stepped out of the ICU, found a chair, and bawled. I cried and cried and just felt sorry for myself. As  resentment, jealousy, and loneliness built within me, the Holy Spirit reminded me of that night in the burn unit 28 years ago.

“I wasn’t alone then, and I’m not alone now.” God has always been aware of me. He knows where I am and what I needed at that very moment. My tears changed from tears of sadness, abandonment, and loneliness to tears of gratitude. I wiped my face and returned to my mom and family.

August 12, 2024 

My mom passed away yesterday. It has been hard, but I have noticed the Lord continually carrying me.  I was asked back in March to share my story with The Faith Collective. Months have gone by after having started the process, and as I have seen other stories of faith from women posted the last several months I have developed many insecurities about my simple story. I turned back to it several times over the last few months, reading, tweaking, and trying to write like the other women. 

Today is different. I no longer feel that way. I am reminded that my simple story is perfect in every way. I am the one that was uplifted and needed the reminder that I wasn’t and never had been alone. The story was for me. I was the audience. 

It’s amazing to look back and see how God knew the exact moment I would feel so desperately alone and need His help. I needed to be writing and reflecting on my simple story the last several months. It was as if God himself personally handed me that memory when I needed it most.