Thursday, June 12, 2008

The day I met death and lived.

I guess that would be it in a nutshell. (Warning: this might be a little long, but hang in there.)

The date: July 14, 2003
The time: 4:20 pm
Events:
It started back on July 6. I was helping direct VBS that year. We'd been going hard about 19 hours every day (5 hours of every day on the road) for 3 weeks straight. We only had a total of 6 weeks to do it all, anyway. I was tired. Really tired.

The job I worked allowed me to be by myself for most of the day. I could have day-long discussions with God. It was good. That week, He'd told me that some people were offended by some things I'd said that previous Sunday. I didn't quite realize that what I said would've offended anyone, but apparently it did.

The next Sunday (July 13th), I felt that to those people I'd offended publicly that I would apologize publicly. (Friends, that takes guts. It shows you what you're made of.)

The very next day, Satan (death) payed me a visit. He was mean. He was cruel. He killed 2 other people trying to kill me.

There had been several accidents on the interstate in the previous weeks. During one of those accidents, some diesel fuel was spilled onto the interstate. They waited a week to clean it up. Needless to say, there were 2 miles worth of vehicles on that stretch of road when I got to it.

The day was beautiful. Not too hot. Windows in my S-10 were rolled down and good music was on the radio. I was not going to let stopped traffic ruin my day, because I was on my way to church (with a cab full of boxes for crafts) to work on VBS stuff. God was good and I was blessed.

Anyway, since I'd been on the road everyday for the previous (almost) 3 years, I was used to the sounds that accompany the travel. The sound I heard on that day wasn't like any I'd ever heard before.

Out of nowhere, I saw a tractor-trailer in my rear-view. He was coming at me. He was coming fast. Much faster that regular interstate traffic would travel. This was not good. There was no time to get out of the truck. No time to pull over, or even anywhere to go. No time for anything. I cried out to God in that split second to help me. And then, the truck hit me. It felt like an eternity, but only a few seconds. God was in control now...

Stay tuned...

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