Perelandra

Another story from the edge of the world: Grand Forks, North Dakota.

I was newly saved and staying up late reading and somtimes praying and I went home from work very tired that day. I was going to read a few emails and go to bed. A friend called and said “Come over!” I didn’t want to. I almost said “no”. But…my friend needed Jesus in the worst way and while this would not be the night I presented Jesus to him, I felt a push to simply do something that I didn’t want to do so I went.

It bears mentioning that the base where I worked was 15 miles away down a state highway where the military personnel and the state police played a game of cat and mouse. I was always the mouse, a very fast one, at least as fast as my ‘87 Olds Calais would take me. I’d obviously never outrun anyone in that car, but I sure liked pretending I could. 80mph was my standard cruising speed on the highway to work.

If I’d had my way, the next place I would have driven my car was to work (the base) and I would have been driving 80 mph there.

Instead, I took this little nudge to go visit my friend. As I said before, I was very tired and did not want to go and almost didn’t. He lived a few miles away and I drove no faster than 40 mph to get there.

As I was pulling into a parking spot, I heard a very loud metal-on-metal THUD and at a speed of about 2 mph. My steering wheel quit working. The driver’s side tie-rod end had pulled out of the knuckle that turns the wheel. At 2 mph, not 80, but 2.

It was the driver’s side steering that would have catastrophically failed at 80mph and would have very possibly cranked my car into the median if not into oncoming traffic. It might have ripped the wheel and associated suspension off my car and into who-knows-what.

I’m not saying that God always takes care of us physically because I know that he gives all of us, at times, to suffering so that we may share in the death and resurrection of Christ, that we may be sanctified by our suffering. What I am saying is that it overwhelmingly obvious to me that he took care of me that evening, and his message to me was, again, overwhelmingly, “I AM IN CONTROL!”