A few years ago, on a Saturday my wife left me in charge for the day of our daughter Holland. Holland was two-and-a-half years old and needed constant monitoring at that age. At times I am not the best guardian or caretaker in the world. I had plenty to do that day, and so she received some very divided attention from me. I spent some time with her and then I put my sons in charge, while I went to pick up some things from the home repair store. When I returned from the store they very excitedly had quite a story to tell me.

After I left the house, my twelve-year-old son Blake and his two friends had been upstairs with young Holland in the loft (a large game room). Blake and his friends finished playing and left little Holland alone in the loft. She had played up there many times before so it seemed to them rather benign. The problem with leaving her in the loft by herself was that they had left a window open. Little Holland noticed the open window and she crawled up and out.

Outside of the window was a balcony with a three-foot wall over the back patio. The north part of the balcony was safe and she couldn’t fall from there. The south side of the balcony, however, opened up to the tile roof portion of the house which ascended south toward the peak of the roof. Little Holland chose the path of least resistance and began to ascend to the top of the roof on the south side of the house. The roof of the house peaks at about 32 feet and it is steep.

Little Holland safely climbed the additional 17 feet from the balcony to the peak of the roof. Apparently, Holland had safely made the ascent to the peak of the roof when she began to look around and realize she was in great danger. With the steep pitch of the roof, going over the top another step or two would have caused her to roll down to the south side of the house. On the south side she would have plunged 17 feet on tile and then 15 more feet to the ground. Rolling back down to the North would have been a 17-foot tumble back onto the balcony. She was in a bad spot. The problem was no one knew she was on the roof yet. Sensing the danger she was in, little Holland began to cry.

The heartfelt cry proved to be the best thing she could have done. Her cry was immediately heard from across the street by my two sons, Taft and Talmage who had just walked out of the neighbor’s front door. Taft and Talmage heard the cry and looked to my house where they first saw little Holland clinging to the crest of the roofline. In sheer panic, they ran inside to try and save her while also telling their older brother Blake. Meanwhile, our neighbor Aaron saw little Holland from his front yard and sprinted toward our house.

My neighbor and my son rapidly ran toward the upstairs loft to rescue Holland from the rooftop. My son flew from the loft out the window and from the balcony to the peak of the roof. He grabbed little Holland in his arms and brought her to the safe confines of the loft. Her young spirit was troubled, but she was able to calm down and recover from this scary incident once she was in the safe arms of her brother.

We learned important lessons as a family that day. First, one of my sons who was babysitting was the age of a scout; never trust a scout. Second, it was really my wife’s fault because she knew better than to trust me with a two-year-old. Third—and the only real and important lesson—is despite my insufficiencies and my sons’ lack of supervision, disaster was averted because of a loving God. God, as He does so often, protected my daughter in a serious time of need and a potential heartbreak and disaster was averted.