A Tragedy, and Maybe a Miracle, on Mobile Bay.

I used to think that a miracle happened to me on March 9, 1995.  I'm not so sure now, but maybe one really did. 

It was on that date that I shattered my right knee into a thousand pieces as I practiced the triple jump on my high school's poorly-cared-for long jump pit. 

If that doesn't sound very miraculous to you, then you haven't heard the whole story.

On the foggy morning of Monday, March 20, 1995, in my hometown of Mobile, Alabama, there was a 200-car pile up on the 8-mile bridge over Mobile Bay.  It was, as I quote from the first link below, "the worst fog-related accident in American history." 

You can read about it here: curry.eas.gatech.edu/Courses/6140/ency/Chapter8/Ency_Atmos/Fog.pdf (page 2) and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_Parkway

The thing is, it would have been a 201-car pile-up, but for the fact that I had to cancel my trip to the beach that weekend to have knee surgery. I had already planned to spend Sunday night at my parent's condo and drive over that very bridge over the bay that Monday morning to get back to school, and I would have crossed it at the exact same time the accident started.

Were it not for the surgery that ruined my plans, I might have broken more than just my knee.  I might not even be here at all. My high school best friend might still be wondering what might have happened had he accepted the invitation to come along with me.  

My whole life changed that day in ways I wouldn't fully realize for over a decade.  My knee injury ended my track career.  It ended any realistic hope of getting the college basketball scholarship, as I was never able to run or jump the same after it happened. 

To this day, my torn ACL, folded meniscus and lack of cartilage has left my left leg both bigger and longer than my right one, which gives me chronic back problems and makes it impossible for me to stand still for more than about five minutes at a time.

But the whole incident might have saved my life. I can't imagine what life would have looked like had I been in that wreck, which is exactly where my own plans would have led me.

I don't know if what happened was a miracle, for reasons I'll get to in a bit.  But I learned a couple of lessons from it, only one of which was good.

First, my unlikely good fortune taught me that good can come from even the crappiest of situations. As the authors of "Freakonomics" (a book I highly recommend) state, there's a hidden side to everything.  Even our worst experiences sometimes shield us from things that might have hurt even more, or if not, help us appreciate what we have. 

That was the good lesson.  It's why, if I ever break down and get a tattoo, it will be in the form of a yin-yang symbol.  As the dot on the yang side indicates, there's a hint of good even in life's seeming darkness. Even when it seems impossible. I believe this. Really, I do.

But that isn't all I learned that day.  The other lesson, though, I no longer believe. 

Whether it was a coincidence or divine intervention, I was shielded from the destiny that would have occurred had I followed my own plans that foggy weekend.  But in my high school mind, I came to believed that God had protected me, even while ignoring those other 200 victims who suffered on the body of water originally called the Bay of the Holy Spirit.  I must have a special destiny, I thought, that would justify God's saving grace on my life.  Or those other people must not have loved God like I did.

Maybe my wildest dreams wouldn't always come true (and usually they didn't), but in the really important, basic stuff, God would make sure I was okay.  I went to church, memorized bible verses, and prayed a lot, so God would stamp a special blessing on my life.  God might let bad things happen to me, but only up to a point, and never anything beyond what I could handle.

Those other people who suffered senseless tragedy or pain beyond explanation or their ability to cope with it?  Well, they must have just deserved it. 

Of course, this lesson was so completely wrong that I'm embarrassed to admit to having believed it.

In 1995, I would have never guessed that the same God who extended my life via debilitating knee injury would some day allow me to have an unsold second house for 5.5 years, or that I'd have a series of other seemingly intractable problems.  I would have never believed that inexplicable tragedy would be, at just about the same time, striking the family of the woman I'd later marry.  I would have never expected that my best friend would suffer the same tragedy a few years later.  

I know enough good people who have suffered beyond the pale that I now know that believing in God isn't a magic shield against the inherent problems that come with life, even a little bit. Maybe a few miracles happen in every lifetime (and I've certainly had one or two, whether my life-saving knee injury qualifies or not), but God isn't, on a routine basis, magically protecting any of us against every significant calamity simply because we say our prayers. The great promise of my faith is not even a one percent easier ride through life, nor even the vague notion that an invisible God is somehow beside us, while also everywhere else, suffering in kind when these things happen (even though I do think that is somehow true). 

That promise is that when life is more than we can handle, we'll somehow get through it anyway and find enough healing to still experience joy on the other side.  It's that the pain of life's worst moments will somehow cleanse our soul of the stuff that shouldn't have been in there to begin with, and force us to focus on the things that matter.  As my friend's facebook post happened to say yesterday, it's that we can never know real joy unless we also know real pain. 

It sounds ridiculous that it took me 34 years to realize these things, but this is what happens when you grow up hearing about Daniel surviving the Lion's Den. 

Life is hard and full of stuff we can't handle on our own.  Some find strength to endure it through their faith, but that doesn't magically make the ride any easier.  Not even a little bit. 

I know this now.  It's actually liberating, in a certain way.

I'm just like everyone else.  So when life seems inexplicably hard, as it eventually will for everyone, it doesn't mean that God has abandoned me. I'm just experiencing life, like everyone else.

Maybe God saved my life 17 years ago or maybe the whole thing was a coincidence. But whatever happened, it wasn't because I somehow deserved God's protection by virtue of being the only guy in my high school who didn't drink.  And it didn't give me the right to feel superior to anyone.   

I have no rational explanation for why I wasn't involved in that foggy March tragedy, but God didn't intervene on behalf of 200 others.  I guess I'll never know if it was divine intervention or just a fortunate circumstance.  But I understand now that the question really doesn't matter. Even if God saved me that day, it didn't mean God would give me a free pass out of every horrible situation life offered. 

I just get the promise of healing, and true joy, on the other side. 

And you know what? 
That's a miracle enough for me.