Celebrations of Life, formerly referred to as obituaries, will be found elsewhere in this same newspaper. So many times, in my younger years, before I was Christian, I barely escaped landing on that page.
One time, all alone, I tried to jump onto a moving freight car on the D&H Railroad, mostly in an outlandish attempt to escape some emotional turmoil I was experiencing. The train was moving too fast for me to make the leap. As I was running alongside the train, I tripped and fell headfirst toward the train’s wheels. That memory haunted me as I barely escaped a crushing death.
That’s not the only near-death experience I had involving a train. Once, in the middle of a marijuana and alcohol-filled night I heard a train approach my whereabouts. My friends and I left the house and ran in the direction of the tracks. Without a second thought I approached the moving train and hopped on the ladder of an oil tanker. As I was rolling away, a close friend of mine hopped on too, and there we went, out of sight into darkness. At one point we approached a tunnel that carved its way through the mountainside. All we knew is that we went from darkness to utter-blackness, and the smell of Hell was in the air. We gripped so tightly one to the other and one to the train. What if we had been standing up? Where would our heads be now? Most likely not connected to our shoulders. Our lives were almost cut short by decapitation on the D&H.
Once I was in Ithaca, driving while on LSD. This acid trip was nothing to mix with getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, especially at night. The headlights of oncoming traffic were disorienting. The unnatural sensation of the steering wheel against my hands and the gas pedal against my feet was disturbing. I drove in horror, knowing very well that at any second I could cross over the yellow lines into a fatal, head-on collision. Here, my fear wasn’t only for myself, but much more so that I could take the lives of innocent people. By God’s incredible grace I made it to my destination without wreckage, but I knew very well that after this reckless dive into risking other’s lives for a high, I was just as guilty as a murderer.
Only God knows how many times I escaped instant death. If you’re reading this, you may have a story too. You may have a story of beating the odds. You may have a story of escaping the grave. You may have a story of getting out alive when you should be six feet under. Maybe you chalked it up to luck. Maybe you chalked it up to “the universe.” Wrong. Luck is a fairytale and the universe is not a superhero. The only answer here is God! God wasn’t through with you. God had plans for you! God’s love preserved you! Psalm 68:20 says, “Our God is the God of salvation; And to God the Lord belong escapes from death.”
Your escape wasn’t random. Your escape from death was a gift. It was grace, 100% grace. Maybe you weren’t ready to meet your maker. I sure wasn’t. Maybe your name wasn’t written in the Book of Life.
Heaven may not have been where you were headed. God has given you, given me, a space of grace to get right with him. In 2013, I took opportunity of that grace and he gave me a brand new life. Friend, get right with him today. Thank him for your life. Give your heart to Jesus.