My grandfather Emil was a medic in a battalion that entered the Argonne Forest, France in World War I. Months later, only 13 walked out whole, he among them. It was a ghostly and gangly squad of survivors of a hellish encounter with the enemy. Whether it was gas, or mortars, or hand to hand combat, the casualty rate in that doomed forest was catastrophic on both sides.  What he saw through smokey googles shielding his eyes from gas, what he had to try to bandage, but couldn’t save, what he attempted to forget at night when the images on the inside of his eyes would replay the dying, would forever shape him.  That story’s for another time, but today I want to share about the moment God stepped in to preserve the lives of all generations after him.  

            The shells fell seemingly out of nowhere.  They were called wiz-bombs, and they flew horizontal to the ground, and then diabolically fell at a precise time into trenches filled with men.  My Grandfather was huddled against a berm, pushing against the dirt, because his life depended on it. Suddenly, a man drew next to him, and shouted in his face, and gave him a shove.  “This is my spot, get out of here!” Emil stared at him in disbelief for a moment but decided that he wouldn’t fight it.  Gathering nerve, he looked around, and spotted what he thought would be an alcove with coverage enough to press against for protection.  He ran for it, leaving the man, who scooted to where he had been.  No sooner had Emil found his spot, keeping his head low and body pressed against the dirt, than a wiz-bomb came into the trench where he had occupied moments before.  All that was left were extremities, a hand here, a shred of leg there.  The man had vaporized under a direct hit.   

            Whenever I feel like my life isn’t counting, or God doesn’t have a future and a hope for me, I think of Emil, his eyes wide with disbelief at watching a man blown up, knowing it could have been him.  Did God use that man to move my grandfather to safety?  It appears so, but why?  Isn’t one man’s life worth the same as another?  These questions need answers, but none seem to form.   Is there a moment when events can go one of two ways, and God directs the outcome?  If you believe in Him, and know a little of how he operates, you have to begin the trust that outcomes are determined by God.  He uses men to change outcomes, but has that outcome already been formed in the mind of God? 

Two generations later, long after midnight, I was coming home from my girlfriend’s place, and fell asleep at the wheel.  I woke up with a telephone pole directly in front of the car, so I braced for impact. But I kept moving, which I thought meant I had broken down the pole.  Moments later I crashed into a fence and destroyed the car’s front end.  The next day I went back to the scene.  I saw where the car left the road, hit the gravel, and went into a grassy area, headed directly for the telephone pole.  But here’s where the story gets strange.  The tire tracks on the grass leading to the pole stopped just short of it and resumed a car’s width to the left of the original tracks.  It was as if someone had picked up that car and moved it over just enough to avoid collision.  That moment was the first time in my life I remember thinking, I am not alone in the universe. 

Most of my life has answered the question why God spared me. I look at my children, and their children and can’t imagine a world without them.  I see how God has directed my steps and brought the gospel to others, all because someone dislodged my grandfather from peril’s way, and Someone moved my car unnaturally around a telephone pole. I can’t explain it, and none of us can when we see the hand of God extending grace and mercy toward us like that.  The only good response is thank you!