As I approach my sixties I want to put down on paper some of the miracles that God has done in my life. I have had many miracles in my life from answered prayers, to God getting me out of some tight jams. In this article I am going to just focus on the four most dramatic miracles in my life.
I am doing this because I believe it is important for people to know that God is still working in people's lives. I know that there are a lot of other people out there with similar experiences who like me are reluctant to speak out because of the ridicule and unbelief. Before I leave this earth I want to leave a record of some of the miracles that God has done in my life. As I write down these miracles I am going to tell it exactly as it happened starting when I was a little boy all the way to adulthood.
When I was a little boy about five years old, growing up in Pacifica, California, my Dad brought home a little toy bow and arrow set for me. The kind that has rubber tips on the arrows and shoots about ten feet. I took it out of the package and my brother Phil and I ran outside to play. My Brother met his friend Carl and was talking to him with their backs facing me about seventy-five feet down the street from me. I took out my new bow and arrow and put an arrow in the bow. I pulled back on the string and pointing the arrow straight up to the sky I released the arrow.
To my astonishment the arrow that I released shot straight up and passed through the clouds where I lost sight of it for about three seconds. I was screaming for my Brother and Carl to look but they had their backs to me and refused to turn around. I was still screaming when the arrow made a U turn and was proceeding back to Earth. The arrow hit the street about thirty feet from me and bounced about the height of the roof tops before it came to rest in the street.
Just as soon as the arrow came to a complete stop my Brother Phil and his friend Carl came running over to ask me what I was yelling about. I told them what had happened and they both laughed at me. I then took the arrow and put it in the bow and aimed the arrow straight up and shot. The arrow shot up about eight feet and there fell to the ground. Phil and Carl walked away shaking their heads at me.
For years I always wondered why Phil and Carl never even bothered to turn around and look at me when the arrow was still flying through the air. I could have been hurt or I could have been being kidnapped.
The next miracle in my life happened to me when I was eighteen years old and living by myself in a duplex located above an old worn down auto parts store in Fairborn Ohio. However, I would spend most of my time, when I wasn't working, at my girlfriend Carol's mother's home in Huber Heights. I was at my girlfriend's house one night in Huber Heights and was getting ready to go home to my apartment when my girlfriends' sister Rhonda handed me a New Testament Bible and ask me if I wanted it.
At that point in my life I had only been to church once when I was about eight years old and had never owned my own Bible. I didn't know anything about God but at that time in my life I had been wondering if there was a God and I thought this would be a good way to put the Bible to the test.
At eighteen years old in 1971 fresh out of high school I was into smoking pot, smoking cigarettes and drinking 3.2 percent beer every night. I knew that if I was going to continue with this lifestyle I was going to have to answer the question of God's existence once and for all. I was going to keep an open mind and read this Bible without any outside influences from anybody.
When I arrived at my apartment in Fairborn Ohio I took out the Bible and asked God that if He was really the God of this Bible to please prove it to me. I opened up the Bible and started to read. As I was reading I realized that I didn't understand anything the Bible was saying. This Bible was worded in such a way that I didn't understand anything it was trying to say to me.
That made me extremely angry. I ripped out a few of the pages and threw the rest of the Bible across the room. I then yelled and said "what good are you God if I can't understand you? Your a course in miracles are a joke!" I remember throwing a hammer at my walls and stove. At that point my neighbor Gary knocked on my door and asked me if I was alright. I screamed some choice curse words at him and he went back to his apartment.
The next morning I was surveying and regretting all the damage I did to my apartment the following night. I was having my morning cup of coffee and staring out my second story window looking down at the auto part stores parking lot. I noticed this guy and gal coming out of the parts store and getting into their car. Just before the guy got into his car he set a book on top of the roof of the car and got in and drove away. As he was driving away the book fell to the ground. At the same time my neighbor Gary pulled into the parking lot and getting out of his car he noticed the book laying there and picked it up.
Gary then came up the stairs and knocked on my door. When I answered the door Gary asked me if I wanted the book that he just found. I looked at the book and seen that the Book was a Bible titled "The Living Bible". I told Gary thanks and took the book inside my apartment.
I thumbed through the book and realized it was written in plain English. I knew so little of the Bible that I thought there was only one translation. I had no idea that there were so many different translations. The Bible Rhonda gave me was a King James Version written in old King James English originally written in the 1600's and the Bible that Gary gave me was a newly written paraphrased Bible written in modern English and very easy to understand.
In my life I never had a Bible. I was thinking to myself "what are the chances of me receiving two Bibles in two days and when I couldn't read the first Bible God sent me a second Bible the next morning that I didn't have any problems understanding.
My next encounter with God was in 1993. My wife, two boys' ages 13 and11, and I were in our 1991 Toyota Camry traveling to the drug store. I was driving about 55 miles per hour down Alessandro Blvd. in Moreno Valley California as we were approaching the Nason Street intersection. I seen a car stopped at the light and another car next to him in the oncoming left hand turn lane waiting to turn left with an old man and a little girl of about 7 years old sitting in the front seat stopped at the red light.
As I approached the intersection the old man in the turn lane decided to turn left directly in front of our Camry. I was getting ready to swerve the car to the left which would have placed us in a dirt field. At that moment I heard a male voice that told me to put two fingers at the top of the steering wheel and to take my foot off the gas pedal and drive straight ahead.