Not a coincidence

When I first arrived in Atlanta I did not know a single person. After living in Atlanta for a couple of months, I went out one night to a local hangout called “The Store” located downtown Atlanta. I met a girl in there and we hit it off and were getting along quite famously when she announced that she and her girlfriend had to leave to attend a party. I asked if I could come along, but she told me no and explained that her boyfriend would be there and that she was going to break up with him at the party. She told me that he had joined the Army and was going to Germany in the next few weeks and they were going to call it quits. She did give me her phone number however; and asked me to call her the next day.

Later that night as I was driving home, I had a very serious head on collision and very nearly died. I was in Grady hospital for months. My head had gone through the windshield, my right shoulder had knocked the driver’s side door off its hinges, my chest had broken the steering wheel in half, and my right leg was behind me and pointing in the wrong direction when I looked down at it.

The worst injury was a badly broken right femur. I had surgery and a metal rod was inserted through the broken femur from my hip to my knee. After about six months of rehab the doctor told me that my leg was strong enough to drive again. I still used my left leg to brake, (a nasty habit that I still have today), and cautiously decided to drive to a popular disco club that I had heard about at work that was located not far from where I lived.

I still did not know anyone in Atlanta save a few guys I had met at work. I had moved out of the downtown boarding house and lived in a tiny efficiency apartment on the outskirts of Atlanta. I went to the Disco place and got there early. I was on crutches and had them up under the bar and was sitting on a bar stool. Periodically I had to get up to stretch my leg and after one such stretching episode when I went to sit back down I noticed a girl sitting in my chair. I told her she was in my seat and asked her to move and pointed to my crutches under the stool. She started dying laughing as did her friend. At that point I recognized her and her friend. It was the same girl (and friend), that I had met the night of my accident six months earlier.

Amazingly she sat down in my very chair. I say this is amazing because the disco was completely on the opposite side of Atlanta from the place we originally met a half of a year earlier. Further the place was literally packed with standing room only, as hundreds of people were literally crammed into the huge two story building. This was the very first time I had been anywhere other than work since my accident and through the dark, crowded, and loud disco club, she came and sat down in my very chair unbeknownst to me.

She asked why I never called her, and I told her about my car accident. We started seeing each other after that night and six months later I asked her to marry me. Four years later we had our first son followed by his brother two years later. Now we have been blessed with twin granddaughters. We have been married 37 years now. (I think)

I know in my heart that Jesus Christ led my future wife to my chair in that crowded place that night because in His infinite wisdom He knew that she was exactly what I needed in my life in order to save it. My life prior to coming to Atlanta was a disaster. My wife was just the opposite. She was a nice, gentle, loving person from a very stable home and I was hard as a rock, mean as a snake, filled with hate, and unstable would be putting it kindly. I had more problems than Bayer has aspirins and my wife was diametrically opposite in that regard. Some might call it coincidence but there is no such thing.

Consider this sequence of events; first I hitch-hiked into Atlanta an avowed atheist and a personal disaster, determined to get off drugs and either change my life forever, or to commit suicide and end my miserable existence in that manner. Soon thereafter I had the accident which put a damper on my wild reckless nature by immobilizing me. I then accepted Christ as my Savior through reading the Bible while in the hospital and during my recovery from my accident. Next I met and married just the right person who helped provide the love and stability that I needed to stay on track. It all changed my life miraculously.

God is good all of the time. We sometimes question events when they happen, but trust in God. He has a plan for all of us and if we will just put our faith in Him, things will turn out fine. I am living proof of this statement. I put my faith in Him and He bestowed His grace and mercy on me and snatched me right out of Hell, and that my good friends is why I love Him so much I love the verse below as I can picture Jesus “groaning” as He watched me make a mess of my life and as He earnestly prayed for me.



Romans 8:26
Likewise the Spirit also helps in
our weaknesses. For we do not
know what we should pray for as we
ought, but the Spirit Himself makes
intercession for us with groanings
which cannot be uttered.