Protected

I am very conscious that God has protected me numerous times throughout the years. Today is my birthday, so the fact that I have lived this long seems to be an appropriate topic for rumination.

Some of the protection has been physical. I did not manage to die of measles at age seven, hard though I tried, and an attempted abduction during my freshman year at college did not succeed. And I really did take candy from a stranger in a car when I was about six. Nothing came of it, and I'm not sure I ever did tell my parents.

Two instances involved cars. While driving back home to Columbus from my hometown one night, I found myself surrounded by semi-trucks. They hemmed me about before, behind, and beside for about an hour. I eventually pulled off the highway and stopped, went to turn off my car lights, and discovered they had never been turned on. God bless those truckers, who guided a young woman through the dark.  

The other automotive adventure was on a day when I was driving the other direction--from Columbus towards my hometown--and I was suddenly in a fog bank. I couldn't see a thing, so I went to slow down and pull over until it should pass. My car had other ideas, and instead of slowing it sped up and shot right through the fog and came out the other end. There was no visibility whatever and it was a terrifying few minutes, but it was out of my hands. I've always wondered what was getting ready to slam into my car from behind had I slowed down as planned. 

I guess I should also include the two or three times that the master cylinder went out and my cars lost their brakes, and yet I was not in an accident. Well, not much of one. One of those times I did rear-end the person ahead of me at the stop light, but there had been a very heavy snow the night before, and all I did was knock some of the frozen muck off her bumper. I was less than three blocks from the repair garage when the brakes deserted me that time, so I just coasted on in and walked to work.

Some of the protection has been spiritual. It was all the rage, when I was in high school, to play "Stiff as a board, light as a feather" at slumber parties. And it featured at the one slumber party that I was allowed to attend. One by one the girls went into a trance, and the rest of us chanted the name of the game and lifted them up into the air with only two fingers from each of us underneath them. When it finally came to my turn, I just couldn't go into a trance. I started the countdown from one hundred as the others had, got all the way down to one, and started counting up again. The other girls gave up on me at that point. I've always been amazed that I was unable to participate in this, in retrospect, occultic activity.

I'm aware that there are several more examples, but those are the ones that spring to mind right now. But the burning question has always been: Why? Why me? I'm not complaining, heaven knows, but I'm curious anyway. Bad things happen to good people on an hourly basis, and I'm not necessarily even all that good. Why have God's hands been keeping me from peril for all of my life? I have no good answer for this. I'm nobody important, and I don't do anything of import either. I'm not even a particularly good example of a Christian, although I do try. Maybe I've been preserved from harm for the sake of my family, or maybe, and this is my favorite theory, because it just gives God pleasure to rescue me again and again, to see if I'll notice. Like a little game, just between us. "I see what you did there, God!". 

I'll never know, in this life, why I have been so very protected. All I can do is be grateful every single day that it is true, and that I have another day during which to notice His kindness and grace, and let him know that I appreciate it. Thank you, God, for looking after me. Keep my eyes open to Your grace.

Love, Spud.