What do a Christmas present and a February day have in common? Well, it wasn’t an unusual February day. The days had started lengthening and the expectation of warmer weather was in the air as the shadows shortened their reach across the ground. It was still cold, but without the biting cold that often accompanies the days in February. Darkness would settle over Wrexham about 5:00 in the afternoon and the street lights would have been on for some time by then.
We closed our Tuesday afternoon Bible study about 4:00 and everybody headed home. Since Linda brings her mother, Beryl, when we are finished, Linda takes Beryle back home. This has been the routine for years and this day was no different with one exception—the on-going road works. Because of the road works, Linda decided to take an alternative route home. She wasn’t far from her house when she was hit by a car that failed to stop at the T-junction. She was hit on the driver’s side causing her car to roll over completely and then settle back on its wheels. Her car was totaled. It was all over in an instant.
Linda said her first thoughts were, “I’m still here. That’s good. Where’s my Bible?” The Bible was a Christmas present from her mother and a present that she had asked for. The print was a little larger and it had a new case and it was important that it wasn’t damaged in the crash. She found it close by and as she was helped from the car by the paramedics, she made sure to take her Bible with her. What makes this such a special story is in her Bible reading the next morning she finished Matthew’s Gospel: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen” Matthew 28:19-20.
The part that Linda remembers is “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Isn’t it amazing how quickly things happen in our lives. In 1 Samuel 20:3 David said, “there is but a step between me and death.” Whether you are saved or unsaved, that truth is a constant factor in all of our lives.
Richard Reddoch, Wales