Washington University in St. Louis was a fantastic place to do my pathology residency. With over 88 operating rooms in the University hospital alone, it was a bastion of education, vibrancy and learning. It was also infamous for high stress and high expectations. Intense prayer was my daily routine, and I regularly petitioned the Lord to sustain me through this difficult time. I remember that on one particular rotation, my weekly assignment was to present interesting cases to a room full of surgeons at 7:00 a.m. The low-bar expectation was that my cases would be prepared, polished, and that I of course would be there on-time to present. But on one fateful morning, my alarm clock was accidently set to 5:30 p.m. instead of 5:30 a.m. I burst out of bed at 6:40 am, knowing full well that I could never make the 30-minute drive from the outskirts of town in time. Frantically, I grabbed my glasses and dressed in mid-air while running for the door. It was still dark outside as I raced down the freeway, all the while praying my heart out. What happened next was completely unexpected, and I still have no explanation how or why, other than to say I know it was a miracle from the Lord. I distinctly remember the on-coming car headlights on the opposite side of the road to suddenly shift. Instead of passing me at what had been their usual 70 mph rate, they suddenly became a shower of high speed flickers that passed me almost faster than I could see them. I remember pausing mentally in my morning flight, asking myself what in the world was going on. I was given a distinct prompting in my heart and my head: don’t try to understand; just keep driving. When I arrived at 6:55 to the presentation room, no one was even aware of my mishap or the subsequent blessing I had been given.
LESSON LEARNED: Miracles continue to happen in our day, and with sincere prayer we can call on the powers of heaven to aid us during trials.
FEEDBACK: WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH A SPECIAL ANSWER TO PRAYER, ONE IN WHICH YOU KNOW THE LORD HAD A HAND?
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ReplyDeleteI actually have a driving story that I thought of as I read the words "Just Keep Driving." We were living in D.C., and one night I decided to drive across town to go to Institute. I left my husband with the two sleeping boys and drove very confidently, only half paying attention to the GPS. Right as I knew I was approaching the area of the Church building, I turned off the GPS altogether since I knew I could do the last two turns myself. And then, in what I can still not even describe adequately because it happened so quickly, all of a sudden I was on a completely unfamiliar freeway speeding rapidly outside of the district into the dark woods of Virginia. And that's not an exaggeration. The woods were very dark; for some reason that freeway was not lit very well, NOR DID IT HAVE EXITS. I drove for about 5 or 10 or 15 (or 100!!) miles before I was able to find a way off of that terribly mysterious road, park, reset my GPS and turn around back towards Institute, now almost a half hour late. The experience was stark, extremely jarring. I felt so helpless and out-of-control. There's the obvious spiritual metaphor with me thinking I could do the trip alone and turn off the GPS. But what I was not prepared for was the unforgivable consequences of my action. I realized almost immediately upon my exit that the road I was on was one I DEFINITELY didn't want to travel. But there was no recourse. I couldn't stop, not when all the cars around me were speeding along at 70 miles per hour. What I learned that night was a sense of empathy for those (including myself) who make a wrong turn, but who then have to live out some of the natural consequences of those choices, even as they so desperately want to get off that dark road, turn around and reset the GPS. Repentance is no cake walk, and even the desire to change can't magic away our consequences. Sometimes you have to just keep driving.
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