Creed

A little over a week ago, on my birthday, we stood by as a woman lost her life. I only mention that it was my birthday because, even at 37, I suppose that a birthday is designed to be a celebration of life. We've turned it into a festival of cake and presents but, really, it's an acknowledgment that we've made it around the sun once more.

It was first thing in the morning. We were on our way to a baseball game. It was a Saturday and the roads were mostly clear. We'd gotten up, raced around the house, brushed our teeth, combed our hair, and loaded into the car a few minutes later than we'd intended to leave. If we'd left on time, we'd have been ahead of her and none of it would have touched us at all. If Troy hadn't run back in for one last thing, delaying us an additional twenty seconds, we may have been involved in the accident. Who's to say?

As we drove along, suddenly, ahead of us, we saw dirt billowing over the road. A huge cloud of dust. We had a few moments to voice our opinion on what it might be. Someone commented that it was very weird to have seen it so suddenly. Later, someone said he thought it was someone riding on a lawnmower, chopping weeds on the side of the road. Just as we prepared to drive through the massive dust fog, we saw the car.

It was flipped completely. And, as we slowed we could see a woman moving, flailing her arm. Troy pulled our car over just past hers--the first vehicle on the scene--and as I called 911, he rushed to her. I'd noticed the bike rider on the other side of the road. He reached 911 before I did. A nurse pulled up behind the scene and ran to the woman. As I approached, on hold with 911 and unaware that someone had gotten through, I could hear the woman moaning. The nurse kept telling her she was trying to help, trying to get an air way. Troy told me that someone had reached 911 already and that I needed to pull our van forward.

Shaking, I moved our van farther down the road. I told the boys to pray. And then I went back.

Troy walked toward me. He shook his head. No.

No. She won't be making it out of this alive.

The nurse said she was guppy breathing but her pupils were blown.

When we pulled up, she was moving. Moaning. Seemingly attempting to extricate her own self from the rolled Suburban. Somehow, despite the squashed upside down vehicle, I assumed the woman inside would be just fine if help could just hurry up and get there. I've always thought myself a pessimist. Maybe I'm "glass half full" after all. Because when my husband shook his head, I couldn't believe it.

She was alive. Moving. And then, she was dead. I erupted into tears as we walked toward our car.

When we ate our breakfast and brushed our teeth, she was alive. When we pulled out of our driveway, she was alive. When we parked our car on the other side of hers, she was alive--if only barely.

Life. Blink. Snap. Gone. While a nurse tried to save her. While my husband and another man searched the vehicle for other passengers. While I talked to a 911 dispatcher. While my children prayed.

I obsessed. Searched the internet for her name. Then searched for an obituary. I had to know who she was and what she'd left behind. Three children, it turns out. One of them grown. One of them, a teenage girl. One, a little boy. I waffled. Should I? Would I? Could I? Finally,  I sent a message to the girl.

In the end, I decided it probably wouldn't hurt much of anything. I chose my words carefully. I wanted her to know that people stopped. She responded. Overwhelmingly thankful that we'd pulled over. I then told her that many people had stopped, including a nurse who did all she could. I told her that her mother wasn't alone when she passed on.

I don't know anything about this woman or what happened to her soul when her body stopped moving and her pupils blew. I believe in a narrow road to Heaven. I wish I could make up some truth about a wide path to glorious eternity but I believe in God and in His Word. Jesus Himself says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Salvation is free to anyone who would accept it, but it is a small and narrow road, passing only through Christ, who suffered, bled, died, and rose again. There is no room for wide views of eternity. Ask and you shall receive, but you must ask.

It sounds so unbelievable, a person raising from the dead and then ascending into Heaven. But my son told me that his friend believes we all came from germs. How is that any less ridiculous? We all have to ask the question, "Where did we come from?" Either we came from bitty materials that were somehow always there and eventually morphed into man, or we came from God who was somehow always there and who designed us with perfect precision. I simply cannot believe that we were ultimately created by something smaller than ourselves. Rather, it is infinitely more plausible to me that we were created by something so massive, our finite brains cannot even comprehend it.

I remember, in a profound way, a debate that took place in my high school English class. I don't know why we were talking about God and an afterlife but we were. Several students argued the insanity of a belief in God. Passionately, and with a lump forming in my throat, I said, "I simply have to believe in God. If there is nothing after this, what in the world is the point?"

I don't believe in a humanity formed by stardust because I don't even believe in the existence of stardust without first the existence of God.

I try not to be too vocal. So much of the world has already rejected my Savior, or walked away from Him, or outright denied His existence. I hate confrontation and I don't want to rock any boats. I'm terrible at sharing my faith--unless someone asks me. I've lived my life not hiding from my faith or my beliefs but not loudly proclaiming them to the masses either. But why? If I had the cure for cancer, I would most certainly give it to you. I wouldn't set it neatly on the table next to my bed--my own little secret. And so I will pray, now, boldly, for opportunities to share my faith.

A woman got up one morning, on my 37th birthday, and she started driving down the road. Something happened. A failure to negotiate a slight curve, is what the officer said. Her vehicle rolled. She wasn't wearing a seat belt and she was partially ejected from the car. A woman got up one morning. And it was the last time she ever rolled out of bed. The last time she brushed her teeth. The last time she climbed behind the wheel of a car.

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHEN YOUR LAST BREATH WILL BE.

If you don't know what's going to happen when you take that last breath, far be it for me to deny you the truth that I have in my Savior, Jesus Christ. I believe that an authentic relationship with the REAL person of Christ is the only way to Heaven.

I believe in God, the Father almighty creator of Heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into Heaven,
he is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit (and that the three are one),
one holy Church,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and I believe in a life that never ends.

If you want to know more, if the idea of being upside down in a Suburban on the side of the road guppy breathing your last breath has you as worked up as it has me, please ask me more about the Almighty God that I serve unashamed. I am not worked up because I'm afraid to take my last breath. I'm worked up because I'm afraid I'll take my last breath knowing there were people I needed to share my God with.

Don't wait. Don't shove life's deep questions to the back of your brain to be dealt with at another time. That time might never come...