Miracle on the freeway

It happened on Sunday, July 15 around 6:00 p.m. My wife Doris and I were driving along the freeway when a bicycle suddenly fell off the blue van ahead of us. We were in the outside lane. Due to heavy traffic we were travelling only about 90 km per hour.

The bicycle landed near the road’s edge, then bounced back onto the pavement, about two-thirds of it in our lane. Even at our moderate speed, I couldn’t stop in time to avoid hitting the bike. In a flash, I glanced to see if there was a vehicle in the left lane. I could see none. I moved immediately to my left and barely managed to avoid the bicycle.

Thoughts rushed through my mind. Should I keep driving? What would happen if another car hit the bicycle? Twilight was approaching. Perhaps a family, returning from a summer holiday, would end their vacation with a major crash.

I felt compelled to remove the bicycle and thus prevent an accident. Darkness would set in soon. I swung into the right lane and parked in the narrow strip beyond the edge of the road. Cars were swerving to miss the bicycle as I quickly pulled it off the road.

What should we do with this beautiful bright blue bicycle? We decided we’d notify the police. In the meantime, we’d put it in our car and take it some place where it wouldn’t be stolen.

There was no room in the trunk, so I placed the bike across the back seat. As I closed the car door, large trucks were passing perilously close. I was in a hurry to get going.

Doris and I resumed our trip home. Perhaps four or five kilometres further we saw a vehicle parked beside the road. It was the blue van! As we approached, we saw another bicycle behind the vehicle, lying on a small trailer. We had not noticed the trailer before.

Two men were tying down the lone bicycle. Two young boys were with them. I got out of the car and asked, “Did you lose a bicycle?” The man who appeared to be the father looked at me, then at the other man and said incredulously, “It can’t be!” When the four saw the blue bicycle, they were almost overcome with emotion.

I exclaimed, “By the grace of God!” They understood.

The father rushed to his van and came back with a flat of apricots and gave them to me with words of heartfelt thanks.

As we drove away, we thanked God for sparing us from a serious accident. I reflected on the bicycle, which could easily have caused me to lose control. What would have happened if the mountain bicycle, with its wide and angled handlebars, had dropped to the road just ahead of our car? I couldn’t have avoided an accident. And what might have happened if the vehicle behind us had crashed into our car with its rear-mounted gas tank half-full?

Sometimes God grants special grace. My mind went back to my first teaching assignment in a remote region of central B.C. One afternoon I was sitting against a white birch in the thick woods. I began daydreaming. Almost dozing, I slouched lower. Suddenly a hunter’s bullet slammed into the tree trunk just above my head. God obviously had more living for me to do.

The next year, while trekking across the northern Sahara with a fellow student by motorcycle, we decided to bunk down among the sand dunes. We pushed our motorcycle off the paved road. During the day we had seen rusty vehicle frames and some animal bones. We remembered that WW II battles had been fought here less than 15 years earlier.

We thought nothing of it until the next day when we encountered a large truck containing men with hand-held minesweepers. The men informed us that the area in which we had slept was still seeded with landmines from the war. The Arabic sign we had seen, but couldn’t read, warned travellers not to leave the road.

Thoughts of the near accident were still crowding my mind when Doris and I arrived home. Before bedtime, I ate two of the finest apricots on God’s good earth. I reflected on God’s mysterious plan and protection. I uttered heartfelt prayers of gratitude.

And I realized those apricots were the most delicious and thought-provoking fruit I’ve ever had.

John and Doris Redekop are members of Bakerview MB Church, Abbotsford, B.C.