Christmas is a busy time of
the year. But underlying the hurry
scurry is the underlying theme of “love”.
Every day is Christmas to me.
Every day I am reminded of the love of Jesus Christ, His mercy and
kindness to me. My life has been
preserved and extended for His purposes.
I survived stage 3B aggressive breast cancer in 1995. A miracle happened again on December 7, 2018.
Chris and I were returning
from purchasing kitchen cabinets for our rental house. I was dozing in the passenger seat of our car
as we crossed the confluence of the Yakima and Columbia Rivers on SR 18 at milepost
34. It was a dark night at 5:10 p.m. and
we were traveling in a solid stream of cars in rush hour traffic going 60 plus mph
in our Toyota Camry.
A sudden deceleration of speed
and then a massive blow sent me flying forward violently and then I slammed backwards. My eyes flew open to see dimly that we were
stopped in a medium strip between two speeding lanes of traffic. Our car was stopped at the entrance to an
exit onto I-82. The lights from the
traffic speeding within feet of us were disorienting. I was trembling.
Our seats were now laid back
fully with the portion under our backs broken and bent in a 35 degree angle. They were inoperable. The back doors would not open. The rear view mirror had become a flying
projectile. The trunk had been shoved
almost into the back seat. The car frame
was bent. Our rear bumper and muffler were
grinding on the pavement as Chris managed to move our car forward to a wider
place in the medium strip between the I-82 exit and the busy SR18. We sat shaking and in shock trying to orient
our thoughts as to what to do. The ¾ ton
Chevy Silverado truck that had rear-ended our car at high speed was now stopped
beside us.
I looked up and saw a woman walking down
the middle of the medium strip. She had
crossed two lanes of heavy bumper to bumper traffic to reach our car. “Are you hurt?!” she demanded. “What is your pain level?” I was incoherent,
in shock. "Give me your hand!” She demanded. I gave her my hand. She prayed an anointing that my body would
not suffer any ill effects and would be healed.
She asked God for healing, peace and comfort for me. I felt the quiet peace cover me and the
confusion lifted. “Give me your hand!”
she urgently commanded Chris. Again, she
prayed over him that any ill effects from the accident would be healed. There were no injuries in the other
vehicle. A state patrolman gave us a
ride to the hospital eventually. X-rays
showed no broken bones. We were in some
mild pain. Chris’ bad knee had hit the
dashboard. The rear-view mirror had hit
him in the ear. My upper spine felt
tight and my right knee was sore. But we
did not need pain medicine.
Assessing what had happened; Chris
realized that given the force that had crumpled metal so badly and broken our
seats, we were lucky to be alive.
Miraculously, our bodies sustained little damage. We were no more sore than what we were before
the accident. We were able to resume our
daily activities quickly. No additional
medical treatment for injuries has been required in the 4 months since the
incident. Even the big financial loss of
our car turned into a blessing. We were
able to replace it with an AWD vehicle before our family arrived for the
Christmas holidays and importantly before record breaking heavy winter snows came
to Washington State a few months later.
Chris and I feel inspired
and miraculously blessed by the faith of this unknown disciple who in Christ-like
love put her own life selflessly at risk to come and pray for strangers in
their time of need. She truly was
Christ-like in her ministry to us.
John 3:16 says “For God so loved
the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him
should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. God is love.
Christmas is love. Let us love
one another even as Jesus Christ loves us.
Let every day be Christmas.
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