Near misses and little miracles

The gravity of what almost happened didn’t hit me until we were sitting down for lunch a few minutes later. My heart rate had finally stabilized and as I ate my burger I looked at my wife and said, “If we’d hit that ladies car when she pulled out in front of us, we would have killed her.” “We absolutely would have,” she said.

Who knows why she pulled out when she did; she was looking away from the sun and the road was straight and flat. It was just a freak, poor decision.

I slammed on the breaks and swerved to the right just in time, narrowly avoiding flinging my F-150 into her Lincoln Town Car.

Once we came to a stop I took a deep breath, put the truck in park and made sure everyone was alright. I drove a little slower for the next few minutes keeping an eye out for any other cars that might want to jump out in front of me.

When I was telling my sister about how God must have been steering my truck, because there was no way I’d reacted so quickly on my own, she asked an important question.

“Why do you think God protected your family but didn’t prevent our wreck in ’94?” It’s an interesting question, and one that may never get an answer. I tell myself that the wreck I experienced at eight years old gave me the strength to get through our son’s preterm birth and so many other trials I’ve experienced in life. Had it not been for that wreck, would I have gotten through the other hard times in life? I suppose we’ll never know.

And I suppose we’ll never know how many other traumatic experiences we’ve been protected from without ever having a clue. I guess that’s life. A collection of near misses and little miracles that make us who we are, each experience another page in a book that may sit on a shelf collecting dust or may be a bestseller.