With the recent economic downturn coupled with rising gas prices, the recent warm weather, and my quest to drop a few pounds for the summer, I’ve started walking to work each day with a bag lunch in hand.  I still drive the little one to day care (that’s too far for her to walk), then take my car back home and walk to the office.  The only times now that I drive to work are days when the weatherman forecasts heavy rain or days when I am scheduled to appear in a court more than a few blocks walk from the office.  This has only happened twice in three weeks, the second of those days being today.

Today also happens to be my older daughter’s 18th birthday.  She has been saving her money to buy a car of her own so she can drive to and from work without the need for a ride.  I’m sure she has plans to drive other places when she isn’t scheduled to work with some of her new found freedom.

We’ve been used car hunting for the past week and found a few possible autos around town to look into further.  One car in particular seems to have a great price considering the appearance, age, and mileage of the car – which made us wonder what, if anything, is wrong with it.  I think we are going to run the VIN # for a carfax report.

I was thinking about this after dropping the young one off at day care this morning.  As I drove back to my office I wondered what my own car’s carfax report would say, considering it was rear ended by a garbage truck just one month short of ten years ago.  As I am thinking this thought, driving along the main downtown Sandusky street, I see a red car at a stop sign ahead to my left.  I was in complete and total shock to see this stopped car pull forward and through the intersection at the same moment I was entering the intersection.  I had no stop sign.

Out of sheer instinct, I slammed on my brakes and turned hard to the right into the crossing street.  I knew it was futile and I was going to slam full force into this other vehicle.  The “slow motion in real time” mode kicked in big time as I saw our cars closing in on each other inch by inch.  I heard my tires screech as they fought against the pavement and when I finally came to a halt, there we were – two cars stopped parallel to each other about two feet apart – each car struggling to catch its breath.  As it is wont to do when I approach an intersection or stoplight and slow down without giving it any gas, my car actually stalled out in the process.  Usually if that happens rounding a 90° turn, I lose my power steering and it becomes a Herculean task to get cooperation from my front tires to make even a slight angled turn.

As I sat there for a moment, the woman driver of the other car called out to me saying she didn’t see me and apologized two or three times.  The little boy in the back right side child safety seat – probably about the same age as my own little girl – just stared wide eyed out his window at me.  I responded to the other driver saying it was okay – happy that nobody was hurt.

After I got my bearings and turned myself around to get back out onto the street, I called my wife to tell her that I almost just killed a child.  I told her that I didn’t know how I kept from slamming into that other car.  I told her that if I had hit the other car, the impact would have been right where the little boy sat.  Even if his child safety seat was top of the line, he would have been hurt to some degree or worse.  I literally told my wife, “I SHOULD have hit him.”  Not meaning that I wanted to hit him or wished that I hit him, but just that I couldn’t explain how I managed to not hit him.  In the real time slow motion of the incident, I was able to think to myself at least a dozen times it seemed: “I’m going to hit that car!”

My wife said that somebody’s or some bodies’ guardian angel(s) were working diligently this morning.  She was right.

After I got to work, within about ten minutes or so, I received a phone call from the local court.  My court appearance for that afternoon had been canceled and would be re-scheduled for a later date.  Had I known that before this morning, I wouldn’t have been driving to work today.  That would have been a horrible coincidence had I been unable to avoid the other car and injured – or worse, killed that little wide eyed boy.  But if I hadn’t been driving to work this morning, perhaps someone else coming along paying less attention would have hit this same car at that same intersection.

That’s pure speculation, I know.  No one can say what would or wouldn’t have happened had I walked to work today.  But it sure does seem strange to get a phone call less than 20 minutes after this near miss which otherwise would have kept me and my guardian angel away from that wide eyed little boy had I gotten the call 30 minutes earlier.

As it was, I don’t think any of the events of this morning were coincidence.  I DO believe that they were a God-Incidence.

Praise God!

(As I had feared, I have had a few other God-Incidences since my last post before today, but I neglected to write them up right away and the days have turned into weeks, which have turned into months.  The incident this morning had a tremendous impact on me and I needed to write something right away.  They may be posted out of chronological order, but I will have a few more God-Incidences here in the near future of past events).