Have you ever wondered about the mysteries of divine intervention? Can you think of a series of events in your life where you had “near misses”? Why do mysterious things ever happen?
Here are eight life-changing events that might have turned out differently for me:
Incident #1: When I was a 9 or 10 year old, we had an above ground pool with a slide in our backyard. One day a friend challenged me to slide face down with my hands clasped behind my back. Not wanting to be “chicken”, I said, “LOOK AT ME!” For some reason the slide was slipperier than usual that day and I ended up hitting my head on the bottom of the pool, momentarily disorienting myself. I came out gasping for air, but was otherwise unharmed. This act of stupidity could have resulted in a broken neck, either killing or paralyzing me. Divine intervention?
Incident #2: One winter night while in college, I had too many drinks and tried to drive back to the dorms. Exiting an exit ramp, the car spun on black ice, coming to a stop after two full revolutions without hitting the rail guards. Incredibly, the car not only remained perfectly centered at all times, but also lined up in the correct direction after it stopped turning. Dazed, I rolled down the windows to get some fresh air, slapped myself as hard as I could, and made it to the bedrooms without further incident. Divine intervention?
Incident #3: On a Saturday afternoon, I was speeding down downtown 8th Avenue (New York) on my bike, in a hurry to get home. A speeding car suddenly shot off an adjacent street, probably in an attempt to overtake the traffic light change. It was partially hidden by the cars parked on that street, so I didn’t see it until the last second when I instinctively squeezed the brake levers, saving myself. Divine intervention?
Incident #4: As I was about to step off the curb on the Upper East Side (New York City), a cab narrowly missed me. I was so close that I heard the whistle of the taxi go by at full speed. If I had stepped off the curb seconds earlier, the taxi would have hit me, possibly killing me or at least seriously injuring me. Divine intervention?
Incident #5: When I was a kid, my job was to mow the lawn. One day, I was pouring gasoline into the lawn mower when I suddenly stopped, turned the gasoline can upside down, and gasoline got into my eyes. I dropped the can and ran into the house screaming in pain, where my mother immediately stuck my head under the running water in the kitchen sink. The doctor told her that if she hadn’t done that, she would have gone blind or at the very least suffered a serious eye injury. After applying antibiotics for a few weeks, he was as good as new. Divine intervention?
Incident #6: Once again, I was riding my bike in New York City. This time she was going to the top. Seeing no one was coming, I crossed Fifth Avenue when a cab appeared out of nowhere and ran me over. The collision sent me flying off my bike, rolling onto the hood, and then onto the pavement. Like Superman, I immediately got up, dusted off my clothes, readjusted my glasses, and went on my way, not before assuring the cabbie that I was fine, if not terribly embarrassed in front of a crowd of onlookers on the sidewalk. Divine intervention?
Incident #7: This one involved flying. I had been visiting my parents over Christmas vacation and chartered a small plane for the 400-mile flight from Michigan to upstate New York, which took me across Canada. I arrived tired, but euphoric.
After enjoying the holidays, it was time to return to Michigan but bad weather forced me to delay my departure three or four days. Finally a change in the weather came and it was time to leave. Four hours later, I landed in Buffalo, New York, to refuel and check the weather. The weather reports gave me no idea what was to come that night. So I took off into the sunset, fat and happy and full of fuel.
Everything was going well until I was just a few miles from the Canada-Michigan border. Without warning, everything around the small plane went pitch black, taking me completely by surprise. Squinting out the window, the city lights below me were no longer visible. It took me a couple of seconds to realize that I had just flown into the clouds, which are completely invisible at night!
Panic seized me and I momentarily lost control of the plane, even going so far as to scream that I was going to die that night. The instruments told me that it was spinning in the air, going up and down a thousand feet a minute. Somehow, I recovered and got the plane under control, using what little instrument training I had at the time.
After getting myself under control, I concentrated on keeping the plane upside down and followed the direction of the pink line on the handheld GPS (which a friend had lent me for the trip and it saved my life). As soon as I entered the clouds, I jumped out the other end as if unknown forces had pulled me out of the darkness of my mother’s womb and into the clearing with the airport right in front of me. I made the worst landing of my life and could barely walk because my knees were so springy. But I was unharmed. Divine intervention?
Incident #8: I wrote a story called “Blizzard Housecleaning” several months ago which can be found at: http://ezinearticles.com/?Blizzard-Housecleaning&id=266081 Was that a divine intervention?
Food for thought: Everything happens for a reason. We have no way of knowing God’s plans for us, but regardless of what happens to us, we are being prepared for the future in some way.