Once there was a gal who was friends with God. She had been friends with God since she was a little girl, but in the last few years she had a spiritual rebirth or kick-in-the-butt that really motivated her to know more about her friend, God. So, she joined a new church and started attending a small group bible study on Thursday nights.
This one particular week her little group was studying James 2. It’s all about loving your neighbor as yourself. Having been friends with God for so long, this gal kind of figured she knew what “loving one’s neighbor” was all about. But, during the course of the evening she realized there was a lot more to it than how she was living her life.
So, she was greatly convicted and pondered about “who” her neighbor was as she got into her car to go home. As she drove down the block and turned left onto Abrams, she remembered that a great passion of hers that entered her mind every now and again was the thought that people she came across during the course of a day, perhaps even for just a moment, may not have anyone in their entire world who was praying for them…who was bringing them before the throng of Grace.
As she drove down Abrams it began to dawn on her that this conviction or passion that entered her brain/soul every now and again should be right there, at the forefront of her consciousness, every moment….that she should be anticipating who God would bring her way every day who needed His touch, His ears, His voice. As she sat at the red light on the corner of Abrams and Walnut Hill…in the left lane…considering this new revelation…she glanced in her rear view mirror and saw headlights barreling down the center lane. Her mind was slow to react as she changed the focus of her gaze to the car parked at the red light next to her in the center lane.
The crash was monumental and propelled the parked car 40 feet into the intersection. Calmly and almost without thought, she reached for her phone and dialed 911. “There’s been a major accident on the corner of Walnut Hill and Abrams…send an ambulance.” She got out of her car as those that caused the accident stumbled out of their car and made their way to the curb (airbags saved them). She ran to the car that was projected almost completely through the intersection and found….well…and found what she came to realize later were her “neighbors” – Billy and Shawn: two African American men, in their late 30s, unable to move and speechless with shock and pain (no airbags, no seatbelts).
For the next hour, she held their hands, called their sister and brother, and when these grown men began to cry…she spoke softly with gentle reassurances and encouragements and prayed silently for their health and healing. This all the while feeling like she was having an out-of-body experience watching another being inside of her calmly saying and doing just the right things at the right moments.
Backboards and neck collars where used, talk of broken bones, concussions and back injuries were heard as fire fighters un-pried jammed doors to pull the men out.
When the last police officer and accident investigator gave her the clearance to leave, she stood there for a moment in the middle of the intersection surveying the scene and wondered what these men would remember the next morning, and what their memory of her would be.
She felt with humble confidence that they would feel that God had touched them and comforted them as they lay trapped in their mangled car.
And, when the last ambulance drove away this humble friend of God looked back down Abrams towards the home of her small group and in awe and thanksgiving realized she had just experienced a real life example of WHO her neighbor really was.
This is a true story.
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