Boomer Connections This Boomer's Life

It’s the first anniversary of my car accident.  I’m still amazed I’m alive to tell the story.  After being hit from behind, my car was sent spinning across the highway.  It flipped several times and landed in the median, coming to rest on the passenger side.

I hung from my seatbelt, sideways, my right hand still on the wheel and my left holding on to the open window above me. I was frightened, but amazingly calm, fascinated by how all my belongings had fused together in the crushed door below me. My legs weren’t broken, I didn’t even see blood.  My mind was clear.  I was alive.

As my tires were still spinning, and the car was settling into its new sideways position, someone slipped her hand into mine at the top of the door and anxiously asked “Are you okay miss?” I said “yes.” Then I looked up, locked onto her eyes and said “no.”  She looked softly at me and said “Jesus gotcha.” I immediately began sobbing.  And she prayed.  The harder I cried, the harder she prayed. There was a beautiful lilt and song-like quality in her gospel prayer, reaching up to the blue sky above us, and heaven, as I hung there, with her hand over mine.  Suddenly, the tears dried up, her prayer ended, and I collected myself and thanked her.  I asked her if she needed to get to work!  She chuckled and said “I can be late to work. This is the work God gave me to do today.”  Then, she released my hand and left my view.  Immediately my window filled with the whiskered face and kind blue eyes of an EMT.  He said “I’m Sam.  How are you?”  I said “Fine, how are you Sam?”  He proceeded to find a way to safely remove me from the car.  Swiftly and with practiced expertise, his team cut out the windshield.  I worked myself into an upside-down position and they gently pulled me through by the shoulders, like a re-birth into a new life.  Although I’d have some healing to do physically and emotionally, I would be forever grateful to my anonymous earth-angel who prayed me through the ominous silence and the brief wait for the EMT. I was never alone. 

I actually met several earth-angels that day:  my prayer warrior, the first responders, the nurses and surgeons at the hospital, all people who did not know me but helped anyway. Earth-Angels inspire us to renew our purpose on this planet.  According to Micah 6:8, it’s pretty simple, really.   “What does the Lord require of us?  That we love mercy, act justly and walk humbly with our God.”  I hope you are finding your purpose in this difficult world of ours, and if it includes being an earth-angel to someone you don’t know, thank you!