Sometimes There Is A Miracle

This week my roommate’s mother suddenly became very sick and was hospitalized. She and her husband were planning to move to Brussels and serve a church mission working with the young single adults in Europe. One day her mom was healthy, and the next day my roommate was on a plane to Utah to be with her family. One day she was studying French with the other missionaries, and the next day she was in surgery.

In college, my friends and I were in a car accident. We were driving back from San Francisco in the middle of a blizzard at night. Our friends who were driving in front of us were passing a semi – the only other vehicle on the road – and their car got sucked underneath. We saw them in front of us under the semi and panicked. The driver of our car slammed on the brakes and we started spinning out of control. We were all yelling different unhelpful suggestions and heading straight for a pole which divided us from the median. I remember that suddenly I became calm. I closed my eyes and thought, “This is it. This is the moment when I find out whether or not I am prepared to die.” And then the car flipped end over end – a complete rotation – until we landed back on the wheels. We were in an SUV and although the roof was crushed, we were not. I never found out if I was ready to face God.

The fact is that kids get killed on the road in car accidents every year coming back to school from their various vacations. We weren’t. I don’t know why we were spared, but I just know that sometimes there is a miracle. A few years ago, my friend Jeff was diagnosed with cancer. Out of nowhere, an otherwise active and healthy 28 year old guy somehow got cancer. He went through chemo treatments and was actually sick enough that he agreed to watch the whole season of American Idol with me. The treatments worked and now he is healthy again. About twenty years ago, my friend Melissa was also diagnosed with cancer. She was an otherwise perfectly healthy 10 year old girl, but she didn’t make it. Why Melissa and not Jeff? Why those other kids, but not me? Sometimes there is a miracle and I don’t know why.

When the jeep landed I opened my eyes and realized that not only were we not dead, but that only one friend had even a scratch. The radio was still working and Alanis Morisette was loudly singing “Ironic” – a song which I have never been able to listen to again. Three out of the five of us were not wearing seat belts. We immediately bowed our heads and prayed to thank God for sparing our lives. As we were praying the friends who were in the other car ran up and started pounding on the windows. Apparently they had hit the back tire of the semi which dislodged them from underneath and sent them spinning back onto the freeway just in time to see us flip. All ten of us were safe. Almost immediately a man drove up with an oversized-SUV and offered to drive all of us back to Winnemucca.

Once we arrived and checked into the hotel in Winnemucca we all called our parents to tell them that we were okay. It was humbling as one by one we found out that at some point during the day, all of our mothers had felt prompted to drop to their knees and pray for our safety. Maybe we were saved by their prayers. I don’t know. Sometimes prayers work and sometimes they don’t. Tonight we are all praying for Julie’s mom, because sometimes there is a miracle.