THEY LIVED

 One of my favorite highlights to the Super Bowl football game is the commercials.  Their images would last for months after the game, long after our memory of the loss or victory of our favorite team.  This year, I didn’t remember any of the commercials until I saw the one about cologne month later and the other about Subaru vehicles in horrific crashes.  They use the phrase; they lived, throughout the commercial.

 The car commercial rang a note in my soul because my daughter and I were involved in 22 car accidents in a two year span in one car, not a Subaru.  The final accident, we were hit almost head on at 50 mph while I was sitting still, waiting to turn.  As we spun around I asked God not to let my daughter be hurt.  I remember saying to God that I didn’t want to die because I wanted to raise my own daughter.  A quick answer came to my spirit that I would not die. 

As crazy as it sounds, I kind of laid back in the seat at that point. Then I saw the hood detach and begin speeding for the windshield.  The thought of decapitation came to mind.  As a new well taught Christian, I said Jesus quietly.  When it didn’t stop and continued for the windshield, I hollered the name Jesus with such a voice that the hood stopped in its tracks.  It was still in that same position hanging on a thread of metal the next day when I went to where they towed the car.

My former Pastor’s wife, the head deacon of the church rushed to the hospital with my mother and stepfather.  When they saw my condition, my mother wept and my Pastor’s wife asked if she could pray for me.  I wholeheartedly agreed thinking it would just be a verbal prayer.  To my surprise and being new to any kind of open prayer, she laid her hand across my forehead and the rest of the story after that is history.  The power and spirit of God entered that place and moved through my body from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head.  When it was done, I was able to stand and walk, something the doctors were not sure would ever happen when they examined me..  I was no longer paralyzed.

The next day, my insurance company scheduled a rental car for my use and I went to the lot where my car had been towed to remove my belongings from the car.  When my daughter and I went back with the attendant, he looked at the car and said, how is the hood sitting up on that small piece of metal?  He goes on with another question, I wonder if they made it: this is bad.  

I told him, they made it.   Before he could speak, I said it was me and my daughter that were in the car and began to march back and forth saying how I was paralyzed and how the power of prayer changed that.  We all began to weep.  He asked what church I attended.  He said he was going to go to church that next Sunday because truly he was looking at a miracle.  Just then the front end of the car fell to the ground and the hood that was suspended, dropped to the side. We looked at each other, I hugged my daughter, and raised my teary eyes and hand in praise to the God I serve.  I can hear the angels reporting back to God after the smoke cleared, the broken glass swept, and the battery acid removed, and my wheel chair was placed back in the corner; they lived.