Last night, since I get home at a decent hour Wednesdays, I checked off a list of things I procrastinated and then turned to distractions besides TV to end my evening. I found my way to my old missionary "yearbook" and went through some of the things other missionaries said to me then. Among them was a note from Christian H. He and I spent a few days together tracting in Flachgau, Salzbergerland, Austria in October 1999, and when he arrived in his mission, he wrote me this letter to tell me what an influence I served in his decision to go and serve. As part of this letter and since he was an artist, he referenced a scripture and drew me in the palm of "God's" hand: "Know ye not that ye are in the hand of God?" I was in the hand of God again tonight as I have been several other times in my life, and I wonder sometimes why He chooses to talk to me, to talk through me, to send me, and to protect me. I am not sure that I would. I will be humble, for I know my weakness. For some reason, He keeps preserving my life.
I marvel at this Saturn with which He blessed me. Every other time I buy gas, I have to check the oil and make sure that I haven't burnt too much already. Sometimes when I change my oil, I barely get any oil out of it at all. Despite the age of the engine, I still get about 38mpg. I still have melted rubber on the hood and fenders from two summers ago when a semi truck threw a tire and narrowly missed me. The seat sags, the upholstery is stained, and now I need a new headlight, but it still gets me from A to B for a song, and I have spent almost my entire adult life in this car. In fact, there is only one person I have ever taken on a date since I returned from my mission who has never been in my Saturn.
On the way home, I was following a pickup truck who ran over some broken wood in the road. Given the light conditions and the speed and distance factors, I was unable to avoid the wood. Rather than come through my open window or through the windshield and impale me, and rather than ding up the hood or tear a fender, I pulled into the parking lot at Walmart near my house and found the spear of wood stuck in my driver's side headlight. If it had gone through in similar fashion about 0.3 meters higher in elevation, it would have probably speared me through the chest.
I feel surprised, humble, and grateful to survive these strange and unexpected events. I don't really know what I'm doing on this planet, and I'm not sure I'm the one I would protect. Perhaps it's because I do thank Him for saving me, for giving me this car, and for the things that are well in my life. Perhaps it's just because I talk to Him all the time, and He likes the conversation. Perhaps it's because you need to know someone who sees miracles and the hand of God in his life. Perhaps He needs me for something after all. As upsetting as it is to have to find a new headlight for a 20 year old car for something completely beyond my control, that's all that happened. I am perfectly safe. The car still drives. There was nothing maniacal about the driver whose car catapulted the wood in my direction. Unfortunate things happen all the time, and even when nobody is at fault per se it is always reason to rejoice when it's an easy fix and a matter of a few dollars and minutes to rectify the unforseen.
Since that time in Austria, I know God has watched over me. The number of things I escaped in that time and in the intervening years tell me that He cares about me for some reason. It also tells me that He's very real and that miracles are very common. When something happens, it's because He's allowed it to affect you, and I can only assume that it has some ultimately eternal cosmic purpose, because if life were really random and cruel and calculated, I would have died a dozen times or more already. Instead, I'm in the best shape and conditioning of my life, in spite of the predilections of others that I would never be good enough or handsome enough to be worthy of them. I'm really more interested in being worthy of God, and as poorly as I feel I fit that description, apparently I fit it enough to warrant His watchful hand of protection as I go about trying to do good in all I say and do.
I know that things could have gone differently. If I were sick or languishing in a job I hate, I would probably talk about those things incessantly and bring them constantly before His throne in search of correction and direction. As it is, I spend most of my time thanking Him for the car, for my house, for the fact that things are in order in my absence, and for money sufficient to pay my bills. I even have my schedule for spring classes, and I'm grateful for that, because I have only one night class and more time to take care of things during the week. With things as they are, God takes care of most things. I was born in a goodly land during a time of prosperity unseen in most ages of man to good parents and educational and vocational opportunities. Thanks to God's hand, that will continue at least one more day, with no dimunition of my status, and I am grateful.
My mother taught me to follow God so that I would feel safe in any circumstance in which I found myself. Sometimes I know it frustrates her when I tilt at windmills and do things she considers foolhardy. I'm a crusader; that's what we do. I was raised on stories about great men and women, people of Faith and fortitude to stuck to principles and bound God to bless them with chains of righteousness. When I may misapprehend God's quiet whisperings or defy in rare cases his directives, He spares me anyway, and I thank Him for that tender mercy that has made me mighty unto the power of deliverance. I read about Noah and Elijah and Gideon; I read about Scaramouche and the Count of Monte Cristo and Robin Hood; I saw with my own eyes the Green at Lexington, the ridge at Gettysburg and sat in a chair in Independence Hall. I walked where great men walked and learned how great men lived and applied the principles by which they lived their lives, to first turn to Nature's God and put Him first. Like Elder Maxwell taught us in Austria, I try to bind the Lord to bless me with chains of righteousness so that if the blessings do not come it's only because there's no room to receive them because I am already blessed too much. I know He holds me in His hand. For some reason I'm alive. Hopefully soon He'll show me what His will is concerning me so that I can do it wholeheartedly.
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