A Miracle on Highway 6

Sometime in August 2004 I was on the way to a speaking engagement on congested Texas Highway 6 just outside the 610 Loop in Houston. 

I’m the kind of guy who thinks the speed limit is a speed suggestion so I was probably going a little too fast for a rainy day. Suddenly my F-150 hit a slight rise on an overpass and hydroplaned. The car did a 180 and began moving down the freeway backward at 70+ miles per hour paralleling the divider between the north and southbound traffic. 

A strange thing happened next. I wasn’t scared. Maybe I had an out of body experience. I felt peaceful. I remember thinking something like, “Well God you are in control. How are you going to get me out of this one.” 

Almost instantly…and I am not making this up…I thought of the scene from Plains, Trains and Automobiles in which Steve Martin and John Candy were speeding the wrong way toward on coming traffic. 

In what seemed like a minute or two, but was probably a nanosecond, my car reversed directions and snake danced down the highway before gyrating to a stop on the gentle slope of the highway’s edge. 

I remember looking skyward and saying something like, “Wow, God, that was a close one. Thanks.” 

Incredibly my encounter with God that night was an earthy, fait accompli moment. 

Now please don't get me wrong. Yes. I was very thankful. Yes. I felt God’s presence. Yes. I experienced a personal encounter with God: Not a thunder and lightening epiphany, but an assurance that the Holy Spirit resides in us all. I had been blessed by a warm, serene and intimate rendezvous with God. 

I recall chuckling, “Well God you must have a special reason to keep me alive or else the audience really needs to hear my speech.” 

Question: What happened to the mass of cars zipping beside and behind my vehicle? What happened to them? A miracle happened. 

An acquaintance that heard my story insisted that a crash into the highway divider had been prevented by an engineering design. “The parabolic curve at the bottom of the highway divider retards direct crashes by vehicles moving parallel to them,” he said. 

Others said I was lucky. 

I know that I know that I know that I had an encounter with God. The Holy Spirit is my witness.