First, thanks to Shinytenderly for an editing correction, and also to Mike of Ink Stains & Daydreams, and a special welcome to yourmindwithin, and elkehoweler. I’m grateful for readers like you!

The question I’m wrestling with today is “How can something that arrives so fast, affect so much?”

A man named Mike was driving late at night when he noticed a car on the road ahead wasn’t moving. In an effort to get around the car, he shifted into the left lane to pass. Suddenly faced with two oncoming cars, Mike had a split second to decide—hit the oncoming cars at 60 miles an hour or hit the nonmoving car.

In his last-minute decision, Mike pushed the non-moving car into a ditch, totaling both vehicles. The two oncoming cars had stopped to see if everyone was alright. The man in the ditch was fine, apologizing profusely. He appeared to be mentally handicapped. When Mike got out of his car, The man from the foremost car was a man he’d known from college. Thankfully, the lives of five people were spared. Mike and his wife among them.

You don’t have to be in a car accident to assess priorities, but near-death experiences have a way of doing exactly that. You don’t have to have a major life scare, or your car totaled, to be grateful that you’re still walking around, six feet up instead of six feet under. This event reminded me of another that happened some years back when I was driving my then-husband to various shops one Saturday afternoon.

Sitting at a huge busy intersection, waiting for the green arrow to turn left, the light and right arrow turned green. No one moved. I hit the gas, turned left and kept going. While I pondered the strangeness of that, I saw in the left lane ahead of me was a long line of cars signaling to get in the left hand turn lane, blocking the flow of traffic. Without slowing down, I checked the traffic to my right. Only a single car which I expected to pass me any moment. Just as I reached the jam in the left lane, I drifted to the right lane. My husband screamed, “There’s a car!”

Only, there wasn’t. It had disappeared.

Now I was completely rattled. At our next stop, my husband asked me to come inside while he picked up a few things. I declined. I sat outside in the car alone, praying to be realigned with the perfect timing of the Divine Presence. After reciting some gratitudes and doing breathwork, my husband reappeared. I took the less traveled back way home, minding the speed and taking my time. This last leg would take us back to our little country home.

A mile into this stretch of quiet highway, I noticed flashing lights in my rearview mirror. I took my foot off the gas but the cruiser roared past me. And then, because he stopped in front of me, I stopped. He leapt out of his car and ran to his trunk. I had never seen this before. My husband began yelling that we were going to be shot. (Did I mention he was a bit dramatic?) I was only trying to figure out what was happening. The cop threw something on the road then facing us, started pointing to my right. Thankfully my husband realized we were to pull into the nearest driveway a few feet ahead.

Only after we were in the driveway did I hear the sound—an engine pressed to maximum capacity, coming from the direction ahead of us. A few moments later, a car came tearing into view. He had to quickly decide how to avoid the spike strips in the road and the police pointing their guns at the car.

He never slowed down. The vehicle flew over a ditch, landed in a residential yard opposite the cruiser. Spewing turf and snow and gravel, the car plowed alongside of a house, bounced through another ditch and kept going. It was like having a ring side seat to a car chase from the Dukes of Hazzard.

Following closely behind him were equally speeding police cars.  They’d been chasing the car for three counties. Afterward, the policeman came to my window to tell me he’d pulled in front of us to prevent a possible head on collision.

Though it was the middle of the day, my husband and I went home and went straight to bed and slept like the dead for two hours. I wanted to call my dad and tell him all about the weird incidents of the morning. I wanted to tell him that it seemed to coincide with three other separate events that had happened recently. In one, a string of lights had burned out, the range hood light popped then burned out, and the over sink light blew, all within a week. Three “Lights Out” messages sent a powerful warning. I wanted to tell him it wasn’t a coincidence.

But when I woke up, we rushed around getting ready to attend the weekly evening service at our congregation. The call would have to wait.

During that hour and a half, I didn’t hear a word of the message, I don’t remember the songs we sang. When it was over, my husband went to speak with friends, and I sat down. It struck me hard and suddenly that someone had put himself in jeopardy to prevent us from being killed accidentally. And I began to weep at the gravity of that thought.

We soon left and to get my mind off it, my husband took me to a little café. While sitting there, my brother called. My dad had suffered a stroke and wasn’t expected to survive.

And when he didn’t, I couldn’t help wondering—for years—what might have happened if I hadn’t stopped to pray for those few moments? What if we had kept going home instead of stopping at that store? Was I supposed to be the one who died that day? Why my dad? Incidentally, he was found on the ground at his home, fallen outside of his truck after picking up dinner.

A moment that was routine for that officer, had me thinking about what’s really important. Who I want to spend my time with? What circumstances put me at my best, and which ones need to be shed. It even helped me decide to spend my time on more fruitful pursuits.

Is it just me, or have most people had some life-altering close call?