Almost killed; God saved us!
22 Feb 2023
Almost killed; in the least, seriously injured. The incident occurred Wednesday evening, when heading home from the Ash Wednesday service. We were waiting on a red light at an intersection on Highway 15 in Sauk Rapids. The light turned green. I stepped on the gas but instead of rolling out into the intersection, I felt the car hesitate for a second, before it moved ahead. It was just long enough for me to catch in my peripherals a semi coming up on my left with no intention of stopping. For him, the light was now red. But he hadn’t slowed a bit and passed through the intersection at 60 miles an hour. I slammed on the brakes and came to a stop less than two feet from the passing semi. Had it not been for that unexplained hesitation, the semi would have hit my side door and more than likely killed me instantly. It would have seriously injured members of my family. We all ‘sort of’ laughed it off, but it is a few days later, and I still think about how close it was to being a major tragedy. We would have all ended up in the hospital; with perhaps at least one funeral to follow. I knew there were vehicles approaching, but there is always the assumption that they intend to stop, and the semi was going so fast and was in a blind spot, so that it literally appeared out of nowhere. There is no doubt in my mind that there had been a divine intervention that caused our car to pause just long enough to allow me to react to the situation. I always tell my kids: Look both ways twice at these highway intersections before pulling out; you cannot trust that people will stop. And I ‘almost’ always do. But on this night, I was perhaps distracted by the upbeat conversation in the car. There was less traffic at night. The chances of something like that happening are so slim that sometimes you just don’t use good judgment. God saved me, and my family. But if I would have died, I would have died knowing I had maintained a relationship with God every day in recent years, and I am certain I know where I am going – no matter how, or when I die.
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