Spiritual Encounter #3

Let's put it this way, at the age of 25 I'm pretty much doing my own thing, enjoying married life, having a good time, on weekends with family and friends. My wife and I would attend Mass on Sundays at the Catholic Church, not every Sunday, but only when we felt guilty for missing, one or two Sundays, we had no problem partying on Saturdays, and sleeping it off on Sundays.

I knew this was wrong, and I needed to go to confession, but gave up on going to a Priest, to confess my sins, long ago, it just never seem right, so sin just continued to built-up on my shoulders, as I feared God, and having a great fear of dying at a young age, for protection I had a statue of Jesus on the dash of my car, and some times I carried a Saint Christopher metal in my pocket.

Now the year had to be 1963, because I just bought a new Chevrolet Corvair hardtop convertible, these cars had the engine mounted in the rear. I had the day off from work, being a holiday weekend, but not my wife. It's a warm summer-day so I decide to go swimming, in St. Charles, at a Olympic size pool that had a 10 foot high diving board, I been there many times before, and love diving off that board.

It was around lunch, so I decided to get something to eat, before I drove to the pool some 6 miles away, so I stopped at a tavern having a hamburger and some beer, but drinking one to many beers, I should of turned around and went home, that still small voice was telling me not to go to the pool, I'm one stubborn person, my wife tells me, and she still does.

So I headed down the highway, to St. Charles Mo. keeping my car with in the speed limit, but there was a narrow bridge coming up, that crossed the Missouri river, from the St. Louis Mo. side, that I had to cross. I knew that would be trouble for me if I wasn't careful. As I was going north on a highway that had two lanes, coming and going, a car passed me on my right side, and all of a sudden it cut me off, turning left in front of me, I swerved right just in time, missing the rear of that car, then I over corrected to stay on the highway, causing my car to hit the right shoulder, that flipped my car in the air rolling it once or twice, before landing on the roof of the car, than back up on it's wheels, in a big corn field.

There was a small Volkswagen Bug behind me, with two women in it, they came running to the point, where my car rolled down, the embankment, thinking I'm dead I guess they were crying, as I crawled out from the car, looking up at them, with the roof crushed to the seats, unhurt just a little shook-up, I said to them I'm OK, they couldn't believe their eyes.

I ask the women about the car that cut me off, but they said they were worried about me, so it left the seen of the accident. The State Police arrived and made a report, and they also called a wrecker with a winch to get my car back on the highway, I ask them if I could try driving up the steep embankment, because the top of the car was the only thing damaged, they didn't believe I would make it. But with the engine in the rear, and rear wheel drive, the car made it up the embankment easily.

I remember someone was in that car with me when I was rolling in the air, because I didn't have my seat belt on, all they were in those days, was just a lap belt, we didn't use them much back then. Again a voice said turn the motor off, as I was rolling in the air I turned the key off, and laid down in the front seats, as the car came down on it's roof in that Missouri bottom river land.

What would of happened, if I had to cross that narrow bridge, or lets say I made it to the swimming pool, I like diving in the pool, off that high spring board, was my condition impaired by the alcohol as not able to make good judgements? Most-likely I would say. I was less then two miles from our home, so the State Police let me drive the car home, with the damaged roof and missing windshield, and I parked it in our garage, when my wife came home she came in the house crying, she ask me what happened to our new car? I said what about me, she said you look good but what happen to the car? It was one of those times we could laugh and cry at the same time. But we didn't know that God was there, just lucky we guessed.

I did return to the site of the accident, about a month later, walking around in that corn field, I found the statue of Jesus, that was on my dash at the time of the accident, that was a good thing, because I now know that Jesus will never leave me or forsake me, that's true for all who claim Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

It would be 12 more years before I could call Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior.

God Bless

To Be Continued: