STANDING IN FOR BETH

I step out my front door about 4am almost every weekday morning, and walk the streets of my neighborhood, or adjacent four lane highway. And while I can’t say I’m losing any weight, at least I’m not gaining any either.

Odd, how one’s sensibilities seem to be heightened in the wee hours of the morning; at least within the ‘confines’ of the great outdoors. For I have had several unexplainable experiences during my nightly treks.

The sense of smell. More than once I have been walking along the sidewalk, and a vehicle has sped by. And suddenly, close behind the passing vehicle, the fragrance of perfume, or the odor of a cigarette. Perhaps my heightened sensitivity to smell during the wee hours has everything to do with the relative quietness of the evening, or the lower temperature, or greater humidity.

However, none of the foregoing factors can explain my having seen things which I never expected to see during the course of my life on earth.

The ethereal, momentary appearance of my dearly departed pooch. The equally brief appearance (and disappearance) of what I am convinced was one of God’s heavenly beings.

And then there was a woman (for lack of a more adequate characterization) and her dog, adjacent to the sidewalk. She was standing in the landscaped area of a bank, and singing the most eerie song known (or unknown) to mortal man. (Needless to say, I “kept on keeping on”).

I don’t know why I have been privy to more miracles than you “can shake a stick at.” I only know I have, (and so many more than I could begin to recount here). To be sure, I’m nobody special, and I certainly haven’t done anything deserving of even one sign or wonder.

Pt. 2

But, among the most amazing of miracles which I have experienced is a series of “near misses” which have accompanied me during my young, middle and older adult years.

During the course of my job at a phosphate mine, and while working the evening shift, I walked between a dragline and its massive swinging bucket, as it did what it did best. However, in spite of the darkness which surrounded me, the operator of the dragline witnessed my predicament and dropped the twenty ton bucket against the slope of the deep pit which he had been digging. I was only moments from certain death.

Then, there was the time when I was driving home from work one day, and managed to flip my car on a rain-soaked road. Having rolled off the road and onto the shoulder, it came to rest on its wheels; resulting in plenty of damage to the automobile, and little or none to me.

Then again, in the past couple of decades my wife and I were nearing our house one day, along that same stretch of road which I walk on a recurring basis, when a car ran a stop sign; perhaps fifty feet ahead of us. My wife immediately locked up the brakes of our 1980 something green Oldsmobile. In the other car, two little children stared out their rear window at us; abject terror registering on their faces.

There was no question. Someone, or multiple someone’s were about to die. However, as I sat on the passenger side of the vehicle I was struck with the strangest possibility of escape. Assuming the position of driver from the unlikeliest of positions, I wrested the steering wheel from my wife with my left hand, and I managed to steer our car behind the offending vehicle. Having missed the automobile by all of a foot, our car immediately went into a 180 degree spin, and finally came to rest next to the border fence of a nearby home; our front end facing in the direction which our back end had been facing only moments before.

Pt. 3

But allow me to digress a moment.

Beth was a classmate of mine, though a year behind me in school. And while I don’t recall exchanging so much as one word with her, we were both members of our high school chorus.

Beth was the daughter of a local minister of music, and his wife, was a fine Christian girl, was a member of several high school academic and vocational groups, and was blessed with plenty of friends.

Sadly, at the tender age of 17, and just three months before her high school graduation Beth was involved in a one vehicle accident, and succumbed to her injuries.

I mean, who can account for it? The loss of such a person of excellence and rich potential? Not only this, but it seems she surrendered her life to providence “first time out;” at such a young and inestimably unfair age.

Yes, I have experienced a significant number of what I often refer to as “near misses,” (or near death experiences) during the course of my life, and I have only recounted a few here.

Did I mention my sensitivity to my environment seems to be heightened in the wee hours of the morning? Then, last night perhaps one of the most amazing, although subtle miracles I have been privileged to experience.

As I was in the process of completing my hour long walk, I heard, (or rather perceived) the voice.

“I want you to stand in for Beth.”

(Even as I type these words, a shiver runs up my spine).

Afterward

Granted, it was only a perception. But this perception literally “came out of nowhere.” I hadn’t been thinking of Beth, nor any of several long-lost classmates who “left us before their time.”

…“I want you to stand in for Beth.”

As someone who has been directly associated with various helping ministries over the course of half a century, (including the roles of pastor, professor, youth leader, mentor and counselor) I like to think I have made difference in multiplied thousands of lives.

Yet, in spite of everything which has already fallen together in my life, hardly a day goes by that I don’t whisper a prayer.

“Lord, please don’t let me miss out on whatever still remains of my destiny. Please don’t allow me to miss out on each and every circumstance and event you have planned for me, and the people whom you have yet to set in my pathway.”

Now, at the grand old age of 70, I don’t know if God has appointed me, in particular, as a personal emissary for that dear precious soul who never had the opportunity to live out a long and fulfilling life on the earth, or whether God has placed the exact same spiritual unction into the hearts of dozens of Beth’s former classmates.

Either way, I think the implication of the message is very much the same.

by William McDonald, PhD. Copyright pending

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