Turning Point


The day began like any other day in spring in Brisbane, many years ago. I was looking forward to it - a  day out on the Sunshine Coast with four friends.

'I'd like to drive up early, before the traffic,' Rowie told us. 'Like, leave about six.'
So at six o'clock on a fine morning, we huddled into Rowie's big old station wagon.
Soon we were speeding up the highway to the coast.  

Rowena was driving, alert but tired. We three in the back seat tried to stay awake.
At that time I lived in a no-man's land, almost but not quite a Christian, still finding my way and I loved the time together singing Christian songs and laughing.
After a while, we three in the back seat were dozing.
'Look at the Glass Houses!' Sue said.    
 I forced myself to open my eyes, not wanting to miss anything.



The first rays of sun shafted over the horizon, misting the paddocks with gold.   I peered sleepily at great hulks of rock towering above us as we passed the Glass House Mountains. Grey shadowy shapes emerged from the misty half-dark. Hills, forests and paddocks stretched out beside us, all beautifully bathed in the gentle primrose light.



Suddenly Rowie swore. Unlike Rowie.
Then she prayed loudly.
Heart thudding, I sat up.
A car was crawling out from a little lane beside the road. Our horn blared. Surely he would stop before joining the fast highway traffic!

'Stop, you idiot!' Rowie shouted. We were stuck in a line of cars, all speeding towards the coast, so we couldn't slow down.

The car kept coming. Slowly.

'Stop!' we all shouted and prayed, God, he’s got to stop! We knew if we slowed, it would cause a horrific accident.

I prayed silently but fear thudded in my ears.

He didn’t stop.

Drunk or on drugs, I suppose. The old car crawled out from a little lane on our left, onto the highway. Rowie swerved hard to avoid hitting him.

Our car's wheels left the bitumen and we rolled over and over, down a steep embankment. I heard a scream and a hideous metallic crunch. The landscape whirled giddily past until the car wrapped itself around a tree. Then everything was dark.


When I regained consciousness, I groped my way through a haze of pain. My head hurt. Someone helped me out of the wreckage and I sat shakily on the ground. With a bleary head, I viewed the car and my friends lying injured beside it.  Just where I had been sitting, the car was smashed right in where it had first hit the tree. 
With the peculiar detachment of shock, I grappled with this. 

I should have been dead.  

God saved my life, I thought.

Two of my friends were hospitalised. I was checked, treated and released. 

Safe. And aware of God’s intervention.


Two weeks later we were all home safely. The week following the accident had passed in a blur. I felt disconnected, as if watching life through a thick pane of glass. I was numb. Then one night I suddenly burst into tears and the shock disappeared.

I was left facing this reality: God had saved my life so He must really have a purpose for me.



Have you ever been through something traumatic that God has used as a turning point for good?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We'll call him Jonah

Image
Last week I left us on holidays in New Zealand. This week we take a detour into my future, years later when I lived in Nambour, a delightful country town just north of Brisbane. Something felt different about that day. I hurried onto the Nambour railway platform, wondering what was important about this particular journey to Brisbane. I travelled down regularly to visit my mother with Alzheimer’s disease but this day I’d felt a clear whisper from God to pray for my train trip. There were quite a few people waiting on the platform but there was space at the end of a seat with a youngish man seated at the other end, so I sat there. “Do you have a pen I can borrow?” the man asked. Do I ever go anywhere without a pen? I handed him my biro and he proceeded to write some notes. A whirring whine announced the arrival of the train. The man, who introduced himself – we’ll call him Joe, as I tend to think of him as Jonah – said, “Oh, I’m not finished with your
Read more

The Silver Lining: Is there any way we can keep it?

Image
The pandemic and the shutdown A strange silence broods over the land. It is early April 2020 and Australia is in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. Attempting to halt the movement of the virus, the government has placed severe restrictions on everyone. Night after night, television brings news of more severe restrictions. Even families can no longer get together. Anything to protect us ‘oldies’. Shopping must be done alone, for necessities only, and we must keep one point five metres between us and the next shopper. And this is after the initial panic buying, when frightened shoppers grabbed armfuls of all necessities. Toilet paper ran out in most stores! Fear is etched on people’s faces. The news each night tells of multitudes of deaths in various countries, statistics growing nightly. Health workers are catching the virus as they help the sick. Some die. Businesses fold as restrictions have forbidden shoppers, tourists and others, so alarming numbers are out of work, with
Read more

June - Time to Celebrate

Image
  WooHoo! Celebration time. June marks fifty years since, after a series of undeniable ‘God incidents’, I said ‘Yes’ and became a Christian. I was twenty-five.   I’m amazed to find myself so old and so Christian. It’s all happened very fast – well, so it feels.   If you’d seen me fifty- one years ago, before I became a Christian, you would never have dreamt it. I was the girl least likely to become a Christian. In fact, one friend said, ‘If Jeanette becomes a Christian, I’ll believe it all.’ She figured she was safe as an unbeliever. Hah!     Early Hints There were hints during my childhood and teenage years. Chinks in the solid wall that kept me focussed on the material world, rarely dreaming there was anything more. One such chink occurred when I was fourteen.        A Chink It was a hot Brisbane summer day. A skinny fourteen year old, I sat on the verandah of our lovely old Queenslander, my legs stretched out over the weather-beaten floor boards. I gazed at
Read more