Issue #2586
- WEALTHY: A business "option" for any entrepreneur (Paul Lawrence)
- HEALTHY: Get off the bottom rung (Jon Benson)
- WISE: Horace on fate
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
- On cheating death (Robert Ringer)
- Do you commit any of these errors? (Don Hauptman)
- It’s Fun to Know… about space travel on the cheap
- Add "kvetch" to your vocabulary
== Highly Recommended ==
When It Comes to Your Money, There Is Only One Person You Can Trust
If we’ve learned one thing from the current economic mess it’s that:
- You can’t rely on your Employer…
- You can’t rely on Wall Street and Banking…
- And you SURE AS HECK can’t rely on Uncle Sam.
So who does that leave? YOU! You and only you.
Self-reliance is the new job. Self-reliance is the new 401(k). Self-reliance is what guarantees your kids’ college educations and pays the mortgage.
When other investments are tanking, self-reliance means investing in yourself. And with your own Internet business you could be making $100,000 to $25 million a year.
Obtain the Rights to a Product With Little to No Money Upfront
Let’s say you come across a great product that you think will be a big seller. You could obtain the rights to market that product – and then license those rights to an experienced marketing company.
Doing this can be very profitable.
The trick to making a really sweet deal is to convince the owner of the product to agree to a strictly back-end deal – where he shares in the eventual profits instead of getting an upfront payment from you. Product owners are sometimes reluctant to do this. But there’s another way for you to minimize your out-of-pocket: You can offer to option to buy his rights.
Let’s say you’re introduced to a guy who has invented a wind turbine that can generate enough electricity to supply 40 percent of the average home’s energy needs. Better yet, it can be sold inexpensively – maybe for a thousand dollars.
The inventor wants $50,000 for his rights (which is reasonable), and is not willing to negotiate a strictly back-end deal. But you’re very confident that this product will be a big seller. So you tell him that you’re willing to pay $50,000, but you need a little time to raise the money.
You offer, instead, to option to buy the rights for $100 against the purchase price of $50,000 within one year. If the owner is uncomfortable with such a long option – and you think you can resell those rights sooner – you can make the terms shorter. Once you have the rights, you resell them to a marketing company for at least $50,000 and a share of the profits they’ll make on the turbine.
If you can get more than $50,000 from the marketing company, you’ll pocket some money immediately (after paying off the owner). If not – assuming you were right about how well the product would sell – you still stand to rake in plenty down the road.
[Ed. Note: Acquiring and then marketing the rights to products is one way to make a lot of money without having to invest much capital. Paul Lawrence reveals his detailed strategies for making money with this business opportunity in his "Getting Rich With Rights" program. Get the details here.]
"Cease to ask what the morrow will bring forth, and set down as gain each day that fortune grants."
Horace
Unanswered Questions
Some time ago, I received an e-mail from one of my readers, John P., about a close call he had while driving when he was 17 years old. Here’s part of what he had to say:
"There was no time to think, only to react. And there was no fear at all, until afterward. It’s like I knew exactly what to do (pull over to the opposite side of the road to avoid the oncoming headlights).
"Remembering back, it was as if I were playing a video game, avoiding a head-on crash. But for the next day or two I was shaking in fear, thinking ‘What if?’ I still think ‘What if?’ and I still have some residual fear.
"Thirty years later, I have a safe driving record, even while driving motorcycles for 20 of those years. (No longer now.) Maybe the one close call at an early age taught me to be careful.
"I believe in free will. And part of me believes I survived that close call because I had strongly chosen to stay alive and healthy. Just as, at other times in my life, I have hurt myself (physically or emotionally), choosing to do so on a subconscious level in order to gain the insight or knowledge that pain teaches."
The reason John P.’s words caught my attention is because I had an almost identical experience when I was in my early twenties. It was dusk, and I was driving north on a two-lane highway in Kentucky, not far from the Ohio border.
At a distance – perhaps a quarter-mile or so – it appeared that a car was coming toward me on my side of the road. I thought it might just be an optical illusion. Still, I continued to watch the oncoming vehicle with great intensity, just to be sure.
As the distance between us rapidly closed, it became clear to me that the car definitely was on my side of the road – and headed straight at me. I instinctively glanced to the side to see if there was room to swerve off the road. Like something out of a nightmare, all I saw was a narrow strip of shoulder alongside a Kentucky-style drop-off from a cliff.
All of that took no more than a second. When I looked up, the speeding vehicle was getting so close that I could see that the driver’s right arm was flung across the top of the front seat and his head was lying sideways on top of it. He was either asleep or dead!
I frantically leaned on the horn until he was perhaps within 20 yards of me. In a millisecond, I had to decide whether to swerve to the other side of the road and chance hitting another car head on, or swerve to the right just enough to get out of the oncoming car’s path – and hope I wouldn’t go over the edge.
I guess by instinct, I chose the latter. Miraculously, I managed to keep from going over the cliff as the car whizzed by me. I looked through my rearview mirror and witnessed the most horrific sight of my young life. The car that had almost killed me slammed into the car that had been directly behind me.
It was like watching two toy cars collide. To this day, I not only can see the crash in my mind, I can hear the sounds of metal and glass bending, breaking, and flying through the air.
I got out of my car and ran to the scene of the crash. An elderly man and woman were stone dead in the front seat, covered with blood, heads thrown back over the top of their seats like mannequins.
I was shaking all over as I ran to a nearby farmhouse and yelled to some people on the front porch to call the highway patrol. The rest is kind of a blank, but I do recall that the driver of the other car was alive, and that a patrolman told me he was very drunk. He also said that, ironically, drunk drivers often survive deadly crashes such as this because their bodies are so relaxed.
After giving a statement to the officer, I drove the rest of the evening at a snail’s pace. I had developed instant paranoia about another car crossing over to my side of the road.
A year or two later, I was asked to fill out a form for the prosecutor in the county where the accident occurred, explaining in detail what had happened on that fateful night. I assume I helped put the perpetrator of that horrible crime in jail.
Since that time, I have been an advocate of stricter penalties for drunk drivers. To me, it is ludicrous that being drunk is considered to be a "mitigating circumstance." If it were up to me, a drunk driver who kills someone would go to prison for life.
In my view, making the decision to drink and drive is as bad as premeditated murder, because it often ends with the death of others. And life-ending decisions should have life-ending consequences.
Drinking was no excuse for that driver in Kentucky to take the lives of two elderly folks. I thought a lot about how I would have felt had the victims been my mom and dad, and wondered who their children might be – and how devastated they must have been when they got the news.
So here I am, decades later, alive and well. Since that evening, I’ve cheated death on a number of other occasions – including a crash in a Learjet that totaled the plane. Part of me believes that in every case I was the beneficiary of divine intervention. But I cannot answer the atheist’s question of why God didn’t save that (presumably) innocent older couple driving just behind me.
In case you’re wondering, yes – I have often pondered why mine was the car in front rather than the car behind. I’ve even wondered if there was some way I could have maneuvered my car to bump that oncoming vehicle off course. I guess no matter how smart or successful we are, in the end, life is a series of unanswered questions.
How about you? Have you had one or more experiences in your life that could have – should have – killed you? And if so, to what do you attribute your survival? Predestination? Luck? Divine intervention? Or, like John P., your will to survive? Let us know right here.
[Ed. Note: It's a difficult truth, but anything could happen at any moment. That's why you need to live life to its fullest, every day. If you have unaccomplished goals or un-reached-for dreams, there's no better time than now to achieve them. Get started - and get plenty of motivation, every step of the way - right here.
For a treasure chest of proven ideas, strategies, and techniques for increasing your income many times over, check out Robert Ringer's bestselling dealmaking audio series. And be sure to sign up for his Voice of Sanity e-letter.]
== Highly Recommended ==
Even President Obama Can’t Help You Right Now
Despite Obama’s billions and trillions of bailouts and new programs, even the new President admits things are going to get worse before they get better.
That’s why thousands of smart Americans are now taking matters into their own hands and quietly moving their money into much smarter positions “off Wall Street”.
One investment of as little as $1,000 has the realistic ability to quickly swell into a full year’s salary in as little as a few weeks time – and then repeat over and over again.
Another is currently offering the chance to gain year-in and year-out returns of 65% with 99.77% certainty – even in today’s economy.
The Fat-Burning Ladder
By Jon Benson
Cardio is at the bottom of the fat-burning ladder… but it’s still on the ladder.
Nutrition is at the top. Dietary power rules the fat-burning scene.
A close second is weight training. A solid session of weight training will stimulate muscle and burn far more calories after the fact than cardio.
Then comes cardio. It’s important if you want to get that last 10 to 20 pounds off – but you have to do it right. No marathon sessions on the treadmill.
Do your cardio the way I do it: Train very quickly. Accelerate your heart rate during your weight training sessions. Short stops (20-30 seconds) will not take you out of the fat-burning zone if you breathe. Breathe heavy. Remember, it’s all about oxygen when it comes to fat burning.
Training like this for 7-14 minutes, followed by a hard interval-type cardio workout of only 9 minutes, works like you would not believe. I’m 220 solid pounds and have less than 10 percent bodyfat. That should tell you something.
Other than walking just about every day, I simply do not depend on traditional cardio for fat loss.
Attack all three rungs of the fat-burning ladder together, and you’ll get the body you deserve.
[Ed. Note: If you want to build more muscle in less time while you burn body fat, pick up nutrition and fitness counselor Jon Benson's book, 7 Minute Muscle. It's a complete system for dropping fat and building muscle that's guaranteed to work for you. Try it for 60 days and prove it to yourself.
But don't forget the nutrition "rung" of the fat-burning ladder. For a FREE source of healthy recipes, techniques for eating better without sacrificing taste, and weight-loss advice, check out ETR's natural health newsletter.]
The Language Perfectionist: Another Roundup of Common Mistakes
By Don Hauptman
Language errors occur so frequently that this subject is a well that will never run dry for those of us who write about grammar and usage. Here’s a new list of common misuses and misspellings, with examples drawn from online and print media:
• "Last year one of [FedEx's] commercials featured a giant carrier pigeon wrecking havoc on a city."
That may sound logical, but the correct expression is wreaking havoc. The word wreak means to execute or bring about.
• "Albright, 38, says he’s the only dad among his son’s friend group that plays games with his kids. This jives with a recent AOL/Associated Press poll that showed four in 10 parents never game with their game-playing kids."
Maybe it’s the jazzy sound of the word "jive" that makes this such a popular error, but it should be jibes with. The word jibe means to agree, to be in accord.
• "I installed the board, and hooked up everything, 100% confident that it would have no problems. But low and behold, as it was starting to boot into Windows, I watched the CPU fan spin down to 0 RPM."
People write the phrase as they hear it, but it’s really lo and behold. The archaic word lo, an exclamation of surprise, means look.
• "Finland is Europe’s most homogenous society, a nation of mostly blond ethnic Finns whose declining birthrate creates the classic 21st-century European dilemma."
This is a common confusion in both speaking and writing. The writer of the above excerpt means homogeneous (hoh-muh-JEEN-ee-us), meaning of the same nature or having uniform characteristics. Yes, homogenous is a real word, with a technical meaning in biology. But the word wanted in almost every case is the one with five syllables, not four.
By the way, when I Googled homogenous, I got three million links – and the helpful query, "Did you mean homogeneous?"
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
It’s Fun to Know: Space Travel on the Cheap
What’s it take to get into space?
To get to the edge of space, you could pay Richard Branson about $200k. But to actually travel into space, usually you have to be a highly trained astronaut… or slightly trained billionaire willing to pay the Russian space program a hefty fee. (Upward of $25 million.)
There is a budget option. The problem is, you won’t be around to enjoy the experience. For fees ranging from $12,500 to $18,750, you can have 1 gram of your cremated remains launched into orbit. The Houston-based company Celestis "piggybacks" the ashes in special containers aboard rockets propelling satellites to the heavens.
Unfortunately, the company’s track record isn’t all that great. They’ve had only seven flights since 1997. And two failed – i.e., blew up soon after the launch. (To be fair, they did offer to give the ashes priority placement on their next flight.)
(Source: Wired)
== Highly Recommended ==
How to Not Only Survive but Prosper in 2009
Prosperity in the midst of a worsening economic recession might sound like a pipe dream going into 2009.
But the reality is that those who’ll prosper in 2009 will be those with a definite plan in mind and a lot of courage.
As we’ve seen during the 2008 holiday season, most Americans are focused on survival right now.
They’re circling the wagons in an attempt to protect themselves.
But some lone guns are out in the hostile economic wilderness searching for gold mines of opportunity.
Prosperity Road won’t be easy to travel at first. There’s bound to be plenty of cactus and wild weather to hamper the journey.
But in the end, those gold mines will be worth the effort.
So how will you find your gold mine?
By mapping out where you want to go and how to get there.
If you want to go from survival mode to Prosperity Road, click here.
Word to the Wise: Kvetch
A "kvetch" (KVECH) – a Yiddish word – is a habitual complainer.
Example (as used by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in The Atlantic): "He [Kingsley Amis] had difficulty getting American publishers for his later novels, partly because of his self-created image by then as a crusty old kvetch."
[Ed. Note: Become a more persuasive writer and speaker ... build your self-confidence and intellect ... increase your attractiveness to others ... just by spending 10 VERY enjoyable minutes a day with ETR's new Words to the Wise CD Library.]
Copyright ETR, LLC, 2009
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A few years ago I was on tour in Switzerland to play music with my band. I normally do most of the driving but for one stage of the trip one of the other band members was drinving. At one stage I said I’d like to take over. We were about to drive down a pretty steep mountain road. I got in behind the wheel and drove a bit. The first time I needed to hit the brakes I thought it felt really weak and unresponsive. However, I didn’t think too much more about it (sometimes you think things are just your imagination).
We were pretty close to the bottom when I noticed a car stopped ahead of me and realised it was waiting to enter a roundabout. I hit the brakes again but this time got absolutely no response. That’s a very strange feeling!
From there on things seemed to play out in slow motion in my mind (also when I thought back about the whole incident later). I can’t remember if I said anything to the other people in the van but I just seemed to into another realm or space and I just seemed to know instinctively what to do.
We were picking up quite a bit of speed by this time. I never doubted that I’d get around the car sitting in front of me but I knew that I’d never be able to get around it and then hit the roundabout in the right direction, so all I could do was pass the car and then continue onto the roundabout heading in the wrong direction – in other words driving into the oncoming traffic.
In fact I did this and as luck would have it we only encountered one car (I think) and I somehow managed to avoid hitting it as well. I knew we were travelling too fast to do anything but go straight out the other side of the roundabout. I did this and then by easing the van up a bit onto the verge of the road (we were back on a country road – the roundabout was part of a highway that cut across this country road) I slowly managed to ease the van to a stop. Miraculously no one was hurt or injured and somehow I had the presence of mind and was able to remain calm enough to get us all through it.
I thought about it a few times afterwards but to be honest I’ve never given it too much attention. I think the simple reason I wasn’t killed that day (or any day since) was because I wasn’t fixing to die. I think that’s a decision you consciously make every day.
The reason I also say this is because I’m often reminded of another situation that played out in my life where a person I know drove around the neighbourhood telling everyone he was off on a trip and seemed to go out of his way to say ‘goodbye’ to everyone. The sad end to that story is that everyone bar one child was killed in a car accident a day later (they were on their way to their holiday destination). I think somehow he made a different decision than I did and the fact that he did what he did before they left seems to say to me that it was a conscious decision (strange as that might sound).
I have had several experiences that could or should have resulted in my death, including a failed attempt at suicide as a teenager. Now in my early sixties, I consider myself fortunate to be alive when so many others are not but I don’t attribute any magical or self-aggrandizing meanings to this — but that doesn’t mean that there are none … I’m alive and I’m glad for it — that is all I need to know.
Unanswered Questions
Close calls. I can’t count how many times in my life I or someone else did something stupid and missed making the evening news by a millisecond. Once I pulled out in front of a car, trying to time my entry into traffic, and almost went right under the trailer of a semi going the other way. Another time I was home with the kids (Andrea was about 2) and working on some house project. Pam was gone with Derek and Casey. I needed something at the hardware store so I headed for the car. I didn’t even think about leaving a 2 year old and a 4 year old home alone until I went back inside to get my keys. My brother did a similar thing with Anna (2 at the time) a couple of years ago. He took the 4 kids to Mike and Janet’s to work on something with Mike. When he got there 3 of the kids jumped out and Anna was left in her car seat for 2 hours. He only realized it when she woke up and started crying when they got back in the car to go home. There was a father in Minnesota that left his toddler in the car all day while he was at work. He probably knew instantly what happened when the police walked in to his office. The high that day was about 0 and his son was dead. I get chills at the thought of how many times I’ve come so close to disaster.
More recently I helped our neighbor get his daughter’s car started. In addition to the dead battery the hood was frozen shut. I got it open with a long screw driver. His wife was going to take it to Walmart for an oil change and now to have the battery tested. If we closed the hood they wouldn’t be able to open it back up, so I got a piece of nylon string and tied it to the latch. When I cut off the string I took my propane torch and melted the ends. I threw the torch back on top of my toolbox. Ten minutes later when I returned I could smell burning plastic. The top of my toolbox was on fire. The torch didn’t go out completely and caught a role of paper towels on fire and spread to some plastic things in the toolbox. The flames were about a foot high and just starting to blacken the bottom of the wood cabinet over the toolbox. A couple more minutes would have meant a fire that I couldn’t have put out myself. It was so cold out that I almost skipped the garage and went straight inside to warm by the fireplace. When I got the fire out and removed the charred items from the toolbox I looked at what there was. Electronic tire gauge destroyed, engine analyzer scorched, roll of paper towels half burned, a package of weather seal melted. The most horrifying things were the propane torch that started the fire, 2 other propane bottles, and a small propane bottle used to refill lighters (the lid was partially melted). I can’t think of very many things that scare me more than a house fire.
I think that more often than not we escape with little or no problems for all the stupid things we do. We become complacent. We do things everyday that hundreds or thousands of others have done and continue to do without incident. Then some unlucky sole hits the timing just right and pays dearly. I broke my arm at in 4th grade. I’m sure there were countless other kids that did the same thing before me. In fact I had been jumping out of that tree quite a while when I finally hit just right (or wrong).
I think there could be some higher power at work, but I don’t know. You could say that I was spared the horrific experience of burning my house down. You could also say that I missed out on a learning experience from the pain of burning my house down.
I was 32, exhausted, driving across the state late at night after a full week of teaching. I opened my eyes a split second before my car would have gone over the guard rail and plunged into the murky Wynoochee River. Something or someone woke me up just in time. Even more eerie was the fact that it was the same river whose rapids almost took my life when I was 7. Saved twice at exactly the same spot. I always felt I was spared in order to help other people in this world.
I have been a lifelong drug addict, marijuana, cocaine and the one that was destined to kill me was Methamphetamine. I was a maintenance user for many years and then I got introduced to smoking it in a pipe and that was it I started doing things I never dreamed I would get involved in, stealing checks and forging them to buy stuff I could trade for dope, going places I never should have been to get dope and doing ever increasing amounts of the drug to stay awake. I was on a path that was sure to end up with me dead or seriously impaired and then 2 things happened. The first was meeting a girl, she was 19 at the time, she needed a ride home from a place where we were doing drugs. I said I would give her a ride and the minute I met her I thought, “I want to marry this girl”, kind of joking but deep down meaning it even though I knew it could never happen as she was 20 years younger than me. We ended up living together, still doing drugs when I got wind that my family was going to do an intervention on me and put me in a lock down institution. Well my addicted mind went in to overdrive to prevent this serious threat to my ability to use and one night at a bar I found my answer in the form of an ad over the urinal. It said “Addicted to Meth? Come to our outpatient free clinic and get the help you need”. The key words there were free and outpatient, I figured that I could go there trick everyone into believing that I was getting clean and just keep doing my thing. Best mistake I ever made. I met an angel there who never judged me which would have surely seen me quit the program. But she killed me with a simple sentence that I will never forget, she said “You know, now that you have learned all this stuff about addiction , how it works on your brain and everything, if you choose to use now you will actually be deciding to be and addict”. Well, it was shortly after that that I gave up meth and it has been 9 years clean now and I thank God for that ad in that bar. I married the girl, (from above), we have 4 of the most wonderful children in the world, my own business and the happiest life together that could ever possibly be given to anyone. I struggle with why I am allowed to have this happiness when I know that I caused so much pain to so many people, and that I am so totally undeserving of it and while no answer is given, I never waste one minute of it. I probably do not have a lot of years left given how I lived most of my life but the years I have been given are the most precious gift I ever got.
When I was 19, some debris in the road took out both tires on the driver’s side and I rolled over three times into the only “ditch” for miles; taught me that you don’t automatically die if you roll your car!
20 years later, I was stopped third behind a car making a left turn off a two lane highway. I looked up into the rear view mirror just in time to realize that the pickup truck coming wasn’t going to stop. I know I didn’t touch the wheel, but when he hit me, my little car turned left and went through two gates, across a road and into a field, instead of into the back of a Suburban, which would have killed me. I ended up in the back seat, and have permanent damage to my legs, but I am still a wife, mother, teacher, and run a cooperative of about 100 local people. These experiences solidified my sense that I am here for a reason, and have work to do. I believe that God has kept me here and doing; and I’m grateful.
I was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. In late September 1970 I was flight lead of a four ship insertion mission inside Laos. As the first Huey into the LZ I didn’t know what to expect, but what I found there I’ll remember forever. The landing zone was a flat spot along a treeline, marked by six foot deep ‘elephant grass’ common to that part of southeast Asia. On short final approach my Huey’s rotorwash flattened the grass like a garden hose on a pile of leaves. And there he was. A lone North Vietnamese soldier thirty feet away who had been hiding in the grass. I remember in my peripheral vision something that didn’t look quite right, and turning toward the object, and in a nanosecond realizing what it was. I had no time to think, but I recall seeing the enemy trooper’s AK-47 aimed directly at my head. Then, in an instant, the GI behind me on the floor of my helicopter let loose with his M-16, a burst of rounds–five or twenty-five, I don’t know. I jumped in my seat at the blast of fire, my skin prickling in alarm. The enemy trooper collapsed, dead. Why he didn’t fire his weapon in those split seconds I’ll never know. My load of grunts leapt off the Huey. I took off, gained altitude, and handed the controls to my co-pilot so I could allow my knees to shake at will, and my heart to stop racing. Since that day I’ve felt a sense of being spared for some reason, along with an understanding that life really is a thread of unanswerable questions. Even in war we seem to be astonished that life is compromised so easily.
I strongly agree with Robert Ringer in his “Unanswered Questions” article that we all experience divine intervention in our lives. I’ve not had any experiences like Robert described, but I’ve had a few experiences where afterward I realized how close I had come to catastrophe. Thanks for acknowledging something that is not popular these days, that there is a Higher Power. We do not always understand Him, but I guess that’s because we are the creation, and He’s the Creator. To those who do not like that, I have a suggestion: Go get your own universe. This one is His, and He makes the rules.
Over my life time, there have been many experiences that easily could have resulted in death…except for the Lord’s protection. One occurred when I was 15, horseback riding in the woods. I had dismounted, and had just placed my foot in the stirrup when a gunshot startled my horse and sent him “packin’” dragging me behind over rough, rocky ground with my foot hung up. I suffered a severe concussion, about four hours of lost memory, and a week’s hospital stay. Another “near miss” time, I was snowmobiling with friends in the North Idaho mountains…a first time experience. My snowmobile lost power going up a steep, icy incline and began sliding backwards. I thought to turn it by backing it at an angle, to eventually head downhill, but instead the snowmobile turned over (crosswise to the incline) and dumped me off. It then bounced off a mogul, then off my right hip, flew up over my body…and on down the mountain rolling over and over. It was as though unseen angels lifted it up and over me. The Lord, I believe, had a plan for my life…for me to live and not die. In my life I have had several extremely severe asthma attacks…one in particular, my husband discovered me passed out in our bathroom, turning grey and my eyes rolled back in my head. As paramedics rolled me out to the ambulance, it was as though I were outside my body…viewing family and friends murmuring and looking at me. It wasn’t until I was being rolled into the hospital, that I felt connected to my body again. The experience left a deeper revelation of God’s presence in my life…and that the only thing of value is our relationship with Him and others…that love is the greatest thing of all.
While in college, a friend and I were night driving on a stretch of unlit 2-lane U.S. Hwy 80 in northern Louisiana doing about 65 mph or so. We crested a rise in the road that blocked our ability to see anything on the far side of the rise only to discover in our headlights a stalled car in our lane perhaps 20 or 30 yards in front of us. My friend kind of flicked the steering wheel and we found ourselves on the other side of the stalled car. Our car did not swerve, skid, lurch or anything else and yet we were past the stalled vehicle. There was really no time to do or think anything. Like Robert, I believe that our death avoidance was soverign; probably angelic assistance. I can tell you that by the time we arrived at our destination we had already been seized by the shakes. Recalling the event still brings on a twinge of fear as well as thankfulness.
Probably 20 years ago I was on a long drive (close to 8 hrs) on a stretch of road that was very winding with few places to pass. I had been following another car for awhile when one of those few places to pass came up. I nosed out to look for oncoming cars and did not see any. I almost started to pass but decided against being in that much of a hurry. I pulled back behind the car I had been following and almost immediately a car came past us from the other direction. I hadn’t seen the car at all and surely would have been killed had I tried to pass.
I have no real idea why I didn’t pass. Was it divine intervention, my spirit guide, coincidence? I wish I new but I’m glad I didn’t pass that car.
At the age of five years, I jumped off a second-story porch and landed a foot away from a concrete abuttment. If my head had landed on that concrete, I wouldn’t be typing this. I did suffer a broken back but fully recuperated and, twenty years later, met the son of the physician who treated me and told him to tell his retired father that he’d done such a good job of treating me that I was able to bear four children without having any abnormal back pain during any my pregnancies. Why I was so lucky, I’ll never know!
I will try to be as brief as possible, but “my story” is NOT a short one. Therefore, here goes:
I had not been 16 years old for two months. I had received a car for the Christmas prior to my turning 16 that following January 17, 1981. I was taking a girlfriend of mine home from school. My car had a BIG block V-8 engine in it. This kid’s ball rolled out in front of my car & I went to slam on the breaks but hit the accelerator instead. Thus, with my engine being as big as it was, “zoom-zoom” & my vehicle was stopped by a telephone pole. I was thrown through the windshield as it popped out. I did not shatter it. I landed in a ditch & a fellow student with many years of scouting experience didn’t move me, cleared my mouth out so that I was able to breathe & did not let anyone “mess” with me until the paramedics arrivede. I sustained a fracture to my neck, a fractured skull, a bruise to the brainstem & one of my feet was broken. At any rate, my recovery has been beyond miraculous. If one were to meet me, one would not suspect anything wrong with me, other than to think that I am somewhat idiosyncratic, “quirky” & a bit wacky. I DO have limitations due to my injuries but have adjusted to them. That is just the beginning.
I am married still with no children & a divorce has been pending for almost 8 years, I think. I DID meet someone that was just insistent that we were “soulmates” which I had come to doubt very, very seriously due to my first & only marriage. Though dubious of of the term “soulmates,” as time passed I actually DID come to believe it. We DID have a wedding date though it was/is still a few years off, but we were definitely going to wed because we both felt as though what we had found in our forties was exactly what we had both been seeking all our lives. We went to my parents’ home to have New Year’s dinner with them & he passed away there on my dad’s bed. We had such a brief, brief time together, little over a year. I have actually sunken into a worse depression than when my STILL-is-NOT my ex-husband & am at a loss as to what to do now.
With that /\ “said,” I sincerely WANT TO believe that I have survived the MANY, MANY horrible things that have happened in my life (& there ARE others; I just don’t want to write my “life story” here for I do NOT think whoever reads this – if ANYONE does at all – would really be interested in hearing &/or reading of “my story”).
Suffice it to say that I have merely “touched upon” two of the most significant to me NOW.
I don’t know that anything worse could ever happen to me than losing my lover, my best friend, but most especially my “soulmate.” However, I am NOT even thinking about doing anything stupid at this point. I am currently unemployed because I have a disability hearing forthcoming due to my injuries back in 1981.
This could be due to the fact that I am stubborn, ornery & contrary. Who can say? Maybe that’s in my genetic make up. I don’t know, but I am NOT ready to throw in the towel just yet.
I DO have many problems, some of them mental, a few of them physical (though nothing out of the ordinary) & some of them mental (due to the recent events in my life). I also have problems with my parents which I struggle to come to terms with.
….but “Life MUST go on” & that is exactly what scares me to death as I am not ready for it to continue. I feel as though I have lost a large part of my complete being, soul, existence, my actual person.
My husband & I actually discussed from time to time what we thought happened when one died. We concluded that no one could “tell” us as no one has ever died & come back to tell whomever about it – though he DID feel as though life on this earth was & is the worst & hardest life of all. He also felt that because we were/are “soulmates” that we would be together forever in spirt if not in body. I truly want to believe that, but it is sooo hard right now because I feel like I am merely existing now & no longer living.
Ahhh, but again, I must repeat: “Life MUST go on.” Hence, I will continue to life my life as I am able & hope AND pray (to whomever will “listen) that it will get better until my time is over on this earth & hopefully I will be reunited with “my man.”
I don’t know that this is what you wanted; however, I felt as though I should share this. If anything that I have written here today IS able to help anyone, then that makes me happy. If it does NOT help anyone, that’s fine too. I have put it out there for whomever.
Thank you to anyone that DOES read this & understand that I AM trying to survive this most recent horrible event in my life because I have to. I have no other choice. One must do what one has to – even if whoever doesn’t want to.
When I was 16 years old on September 8, 1975, I was struck by a car while riding my motorcycle. The events that led up to that experience are just as important and amazing as what took place afterward. For many years, and until only a little more than a year ago, I had believed that something or some force outside of myself had placed me in such a dangerous situation intentionally. That perspective that was belief derived and driven, had kept me in a state of fear for many years. Believing that I always had to watch out for what might be a deadly trap waiting for me when I had least expected it.
My viewpoint of my experience has recently changed to a more interesting, amazing and positive reality. That all along, I have been taken care of in every moment of my existence and that my experiences tell an amazing story of the truth that exists that is so very different from what many seem to believe about our life and so called circumstances of fate and chance. Neither has anything to do with the pathway that we follow so much as our being receptive to receiving help from the same life force that brought us here in the first place.
What I have discovered has to do more so with myself not being and remaining in touch with the divine part of me that has only one purpose or intent. That is to provide me with loving guidance and the things that are necessary to my living and being well in this life. A part of life support that is available to me always and is a constant that never changes unless I develop some alternative belief that derails the natural state or way of my maintaining this very important connection. This is true for all of us whether it is understood or not. This is the same force that created my physical existence here on this planet earth which supports my living body and being.
When I was finally able to connect with the total experience of what took place in the brief time just before the accident, I came to realize a truth that was very different from what my beliefs had taught me to perceive of that event. The reality was that I, as a young man had too many distractions coming from outside of me that created enough noise within myself to keep me from the best and most knowing part of me.
I had been waiting at a stop sign behind a windowless van that made a right turn. When it was my turn to proceed through the intersection, I looked left and right, then proceeded when it seemed that it was safe to go. The van unfortunately created a blind spot from a diagonal viewpoint that would not allow me to see the car that was about to hit me. The car was down a slight grade and around a slight curve that kept it hidden until I began to cross the lane that it was traveling in. The van kept that car out of sight until I was in the other lane and beyond the visual block created by the van.
What I have come to realize was that just before the accident occurred, the message in the form of a feeling and insight came through that something was very wrong at that moment. I knew that I was in trouble. But, as I said, I had too much going on in my head to fully realize what my guidance was attempting to tell me at that very critical moment. Basically, I ignored or apparently didn’t know what to make of the profound insight that I had just received.
When I was able to see the pathway of the lane I was about to cross, clear of the van, I saw a car immediately to my right side. Something told me that I needed to know that danger was at my doorstep and that I needed to do something about it. I vividly remember when I could completely comprehend the situation, my instincts really kicking in at that critical moment in a completely automatic way. I immediately twisted the throttle on the motorcycle without any thinking required. But, it was too late for any of that loving guidance to help me. I had already spent all of my opportunities to avoid what was about to take place.
The car struck me. I was impacted on the right side of my pelvis by a 3000 lb car. The impact hit the top of the femur and right side of my pelvis completely shattering my hip and pelvis into many fragments. I have come to discover that it was like a hand grenade had exploded inside of me. But no real evidence indicating that from the outside until the hospital that cared for me took x-rays. I had extensive internal injuries such as lacerated intestines and bladder and was experiencing extensive internal bleeding.
I was rushed to the hospital by ambulance as soon as they could arrive at the scene and take me there. When I was laying in the emergency room, friends and family began to show up and come in to see how I was doing. My friend and one of my life journey Mom’s(I have been blessed with many), Lois Frank worked at the hospital and came in to see me. She was beside herself with emotion and grief and could not contain it. My Mom showed up shortly after that and I remember her asking me if I could wiggle my toes. To this day, I still am not certain whether I was able to or not. I could not feel anything in my legs at all.
The most profound part of the experience took place soon after. I began to enter a state of absolute bliss while a sense of total and complete and unconditional love enveloped and filled my entire being. I can best describe feeling as though I was in the loving palms of the Universe that created me and all of us. Lovingly holding me and suspending me in the balance while the doctors could figure out what had happened and what to do about the injuries that I had sustained. I felt totally and completely safe and Ok in that moment. I felt that nothing could possibly go or be wrong. But everyone else around me believed differently, especially the doctors when they learned of the extent of my injuries.
I soon drifted off and did not awaken until after the surgery in intensive care, still very much alive of course. Many would call my experience a near death episode but I have come around to a new way of perceiving what took place for me based upon my feeling of the real truth and the fact that I am still alive today. I now call this an as close to life and living as one can get experience. The truth it seems, is that we are amazingly supported in this life if we allow ourselves to be. For me, the letting go and allowing myself to be be taken care of was completely automatic and as a result, I am here to write and tell about it. I had to trust.
Just before the accident, I had an opportunity to trust the best and highest sense of myself. But, I did not trust or listen to or could not completely hear my instincts and faculties that were trying to get through to me and take care of me the moment before I was struck. Those faculties were there I now realize in retrospect but I was unavailable or unwilling to connect with that very essential part of me. The opportunity to trust was there but, I only did trust and become receptive when it was too late and only when I could actually see the danger. I have learned a lot from that experience and I have ultimately benefited as a result. In retrospect, I knew what was about to happen before it did.
In the second opportunity to trust, I had to completely let go and allow my broken body to be taken care of by a loving force that at that moment I could not fully comprehend. I have only recently come to understand the powerful nature of that loving force that kept me alive until the doctors could patch me up. I now know that this is true because as I understand things today, the extent of my injuries were very severe, the type that in most cases would usually end ones life. My particular requirements for blood essentially drained all that was available in the entire blood bank as I have been told.
The doctors that treated me did their best and essentially accomplished the main objective of keeping me alive and patching me up well enough for my body to be able to continue the healing process. I was essentially told at one point after being moved from intensive care, that my broken bones would take about 6-8 weeks to heal and that they did the best they could considering the extent of damage and the many pieces that needed to be placed back together. The orthopedic surgeon claimed that he could do nothing more than what he did.
After six weeks in traction and a total of eight weeks in the hospital, I was sent home for more recovery. My impression while laying in my hospital bed was that I would be walking in the eight weeks after that part of my recovery was over. It took more like 18 months for me to actually begin walking without any assistance.
I was told many things by the doctors to basically not expect too much from my broken and disfigured body. I was actually told by an expert, a pioneer in the field of hip replacement surgery that I would almost definitely not walk without a cane and that I would need a hip replacement by about age 36.
I had other plans though and in a very determined way, placed my focus on those pursuit and my dreams over everything else. In my mind, I basically told my doctors to keep their limiting opinions and beliefs to themselves in a not so nice way, silently but effectively. Basically, thanks for patching me up and all but this is where we part ways. And so I went about my life from there thankfully ignoring pretty much what they said, the dogma and beliefs of their so called expert advice and knowledge would no longer serve what was best for me anymore.
Within two years following the accident,I began to think about running again. I was in a special physical education class at my high school that allowed me to use all of the training facilities that the athletes had access to. A man named Dick Scheafer ran that program.
One day, I went to Mr. Scheafer in late 1977 and expressed to him that I felt like I could run. He took me inside of his office and sat me down in order to provide a reflection back to me that I remember to this day. His words: “Tony, you’re out there all on your own.” Meaning, I had already gone way beyond what any of the doctors and experts had predicted would be possible considering the injuries that I had sustained from my accident. He clearly suggested to me that it was entirely up to me as to how far I could go with my intent to become well and to live whatever life I had wanted to live and have.
So, I began to run. I still run to this day. Hiking, walking, skiing and many other physical activities are a part of my life. I also have driven race cars (the dream that gave me the determination to get well) and done many other things that I wanted to do without any consideration of physical limits. I am now 49 years of age and I still have and intend to keep my functional and mendable hip.
My effective guidance system has also served me very well during my life since the day of the accident. When dangerous situations have arisen that could have provided significant threat to me, I have been lovingly guided away from such dangers consistently and without fail every time. Those experiences are just as amazing as the realizations I have had about the motorcycle accident and in those cases, the safe guiding of my life played out like a well oiled machine or a clock that always keeps perfect time.
One such incident took place during a car race I was in at Watkins Glen NY. I was following a group of cars while in fourth place when one of the cars in front of me hit the rear of another car, knocking the front nose off. The nose part which weighed about 30 pounds flew straight up into the air and was coming down on me and my car. I was at the exact point of needing to turn the car to the left in order to stay on the track and remain safe, to make the turn. At that point, my automatic response guidance system took over and guided me to point my head down and into my left shoulder in order to protect my neck and head from a potential impact with a heavy object while I was moving at over 90 MPH. In a normal street car with a windshield that probably would not have been so threatening. But, in an open cockpit formula race car, it made all the difference. Thirty pounds at such a speed would probably have broken my neck if I was not prepared and braced properly.
While I was in this protective tucked position with my head, I could not see where I was going. And at 90 MPH, the distance traveled happens pretty fast at more than 100 feet per second. But, somehow, without looking, I managed to turn the car in at exactly the right moment and at exactly the right amount of steering to place the car in the exact perfect line of the race track for that turn. After I heard the threatening debris impact my car, I immediately looked up again and saw it fly away from my car and also recognized that the car was pointing in the right direction and that I was still on the race track, safely moving along still at speed. I continued on my way and ended up finishing second place that day. I never really understood the full meaning of that experience until after I had come to recognize what had really taken place the day I had the motorcycle accident.
When I began to fully understand the amazing ways that I had been lovingly guided in the most threatening situations, I began to connect with more of those experiences and the strange circumstances that surrounded those events. Another such event took place in October of 1989 in San Francisco California, the day that we had the deadly earthquake. For many years, I struggled to understand the reason that I had chosen to drive a vehicle that only got less than 10 miles per gallon over one that would normally get over 20, the one I usually drove.
But, again, my reframing of perspective of the motorcycle accident has opened me up to a wider range of possibilities than I had previously thought was available to me. Again, this is true for any of us but we must let go of the preconceived dogma that we have learned about this life in order to become open to a much more positive and broader perspective. This can be difficult for most because we have been taught to fear more than anything else. This is key to understand and to overcome.
The day of the earthquake, I made not just one, but many choices that put me in a state that allowed me to be very present when the critical moment would arrive. The highlights basically boil down to my being available at that critical time to be ready to make a choice to take the safest way home. In the days preceding that day, I had made some decisions about things that created the perfect setup so I would be ready when the moment came for me to make the right choice of direction.
I chose a new cell phone that had a limited batter life. That day, I had used the battery up completely. The vehicle that I had chosen to drive had no cigarette lighter that could alternatively power the phone. The radio was inoperative in the vehicle so most of the normal distractions were not available to me. I would usually call a friend or family member during my commute home from San Francisco to Fremont where I lived with my wife and son at that time. I couldn’t that day. I chose to drive that vehicle impulsively and only that morning. My ride was surprisingly quiet and peaceful. I was available to connect within.
One of the games that I used to play on the way home involved me reading the flow of traffic. I would attempt to estimate the flow between the two routes available and choose the best one. Once committed, there was essentially no changing the route. For me, it was a choice between traveling over the Bay Bridge and going down 880 and the Cypress structure or going down highway 101 south. When I reached the critical point on that day, I noticed that the traffic was flowing pretty evenly for both routes. At the precise moment when needed, I noticed the Good Year Blimp in the air presumably over Candlestick park where the world series was taking place. At that very moment of seeing the blimp, I received the insight that the everyone was already at the game and that the traffic flow should now be Ok to travel down highway 101 south. And, so at the very critical moment of choice, I took the better way and arrived home safely even after the earthquake had struck and many people were stranded on the opposite side of the bay.
More loving guidance took care of me at the time when the earthquake took place that indicated to me what had taken place and that I was to travel as fast as I could while every other car pulled off to the side of the road like the parting of the red sea. All of the other drivers thought that they had all simultaneously gotten a flat tire. I somehow knew otherwise and proceeded on my way, getting to and crossing the San Mateo bridge before it was closed off for inspection. I made it home on that day quickly and safely. Since my radio was not working, I could only imaging what was going on and what had happened. I did not know the full extent of that eventful day until I arrived home to see the news on the television.
The confusing part for many is what we all witness and learn about that happens to a very small part of our global population on a daily basis. Unfortunately, this information is abused and blown out of proportion in ways that place many into a state of such fear and belief that maybe they will be the next to be hurt or worse and that they must live in such fear in order to stay alive or be Ok. This is just not true but is a sad reality that actually keeps many from knowing what to do or being available to do what is best when a serious situation arises in very rare circumstances.
By living with and remaining connected to such chronic fear, we become disconnected from the best and most loving part of ourselves, the part of us that would normally guide us safely down our respective journey pathways. The part of us that would make it a much better experience and actually keep us safe if we allowed ourselves to be open to such a possibility. Again, trust is key and learning where to place that trust can mean the difference between the best that life has to offer and the potential worst of what no one wants to experience.
The elderly couple traveling behind the Robert Ringer’s vehicle unfortunately were totally unaware of what was coming at them They did not have the advantage of sight that Robert had. But as Robert had mentioned referring to himself in his telling of the story, did the couple have the same attitude about their lives that young Robert had at that moment in time.
In my experience and to support what Robert is saying, I also have come to understand the importance of loving one’s life and remaining in touch with what is most important. It is most important for me at least to stay connected with my sense of purpose and knowing that I am a worthy and essential part of the whole and that I am ultimately in this life experience because I originally chose to be and continue to do so. And… I expect the best from my life. I am ultimately responsible for my own experience at the end of the day and I accept that fully. So, the larger question to ask is the status of victim and what we have all conveniently come to believe that means, that somehow we are powerless over our circumstances. Was I a victim on September 8, 1975? I don’t think so.
I had all of the power available to me at that given moment. All I had to do was pay attention, trust and allow myself to act accordingly in my own best interest. The even bigger question to ask is why I had such a difficult time in connecting with that better part of myself that day just before the accident, that was most interested in my well being and what that is all about. It seems that question is not just for me to be asking myself… I can only hope that others are able to learn and benefit from my personal experiences as well.
Your story reminded me of the time I was driving south on the DanRyan Expressway (one of the world’s deadliest expressways) just 5 minutes south of downtown Chicago.
I was in the third of four lanes. Traffic was heavy and cars were weaving in and out without signaling.
Then the cars in the fourth and second lanes simultaneously moved into the third lane about 2 or 3 car lengths in front of me. They crashed against each other and I yelled to my passenger: Hold on tight!”
Watching as if in slow motion both cars seem to bounce back into their respective lanes and my car just kept going straight.
I remember hearing the screeches and crashes behind me. Never found out what happened. The traffic behind me came to a halt in all four lanes.
At that moment, I said to my passenger: “did you see what just happened?” and the reply: “I do not believe that we were able to get thru that crash.”
Then, I looked up, and said to someone or something: “Thank you!”
Its something I say now any time there is a close call or a narrow miss. I believe that there is someone watching over me. I give thanks to that person? or guardian angel? or? whenever something happens that just does not fit normal life’s expectancies of events. Just hoping that it is a guardian angel and not some unbelievable, life-saving and wonderful strokes of good luck. Jc
Only by the grace of my loving savior Jesus I am alive today.Each day is agift of God that is why it is called the present.
I remember driving home in a snow squall about 10 years ago. It was a time when I was divorcing my then spouse and feeling like I was getting a new lease on life but feeling a little guilty because he was not a bad person, he was just afraid of life and couldn’t be convinced to be otherwise.
I was coming off the rte 2 entrance to 84W in Hartford, Ct and because of the snow on the bridge, ended up doing a 180 on I-84W. As I watched in amazement three 16 wheelers were headed at me across the 3 lanes of highway. They were followed by a fair number of cars (I didn’t count). What was fascinating was that I didn’t feel frightened. I somehow “knew” I was going to be okay. And I was! I don’t know quite how it happened but every one of those vehicles that coulda/shoulda hit me head on didn’t! I didn’t wait around for the next group of cars but managed to turn my car around in the right direction and got to my exit a little further up the road where I sat at the traffic light at the end of the exit ramp and shook for all I was worth. That done, I’ve felt so much gratitude for being alive that I’ve never doubted that the path I chose was the right one. I’m still working some of the kinks out of my life, but I know that I am on the right path.
My husband, son and I were holidaying in a Floridian city and because of our out of country licence plates – we seem to have been noticed by some locals. We paid it no mind. We spent a sleepless night – tossing and turning and being very aware of an urgent inner prompting that we must leave our hotel and that city – get out quickly. Our son had the same tortured thoughts. We could not explain it – did not know why – but knew we must leave NOW. We left immediately without incident but could not explain that weird warning that all three of us had in our spirits. We can only assume that perhaps evil had been planned for us and that divine intervention had forewarned us. We will never know if we were just imagining something or acting on divine guidance. We did not want to take the risk and find out the hard way that the warning was real.
Attention: Robert Ringer re “Unanswered Questions”
Hi Robert. I enjoyed you’re article today and always enjoy ETR each day.
I do believe in predestination and, by extension, cannot believe in “free will” (or at least not the way that most people speak of it).
You’re quite right. It’s hard to answer the question “Why was the old couple killed behind you?” If one believes in predestination, then a greater purpose is at play. In my terms, that means God has chosen to take the lives of that old couple at that time and in that manner – and has chosen to spare yours.
Why? I don’t know. If I did know, I’d be God … and despite my own actions and delusions of grandeur from time to time, I know I’m not (big grin apparent).
However, under a predestination argument, neither you nor I can know the full answer. It could have been that they were so much in love for their entire life, that the thought of one predeceasing the other would have caused immense pain – so they were taken together, immediately, with little or no pain. That’s merciful to them, although I recognise that the family remaining may not hold that view, and you hold some residual pain.
I think it’s also worth stating that it’s not your fault that they died (just in case you were heading down that useless path of self-flagellation). Again, if predestination is at play, then you could have swerved left or right, stopped, jumped out of the car, whatever … the result would still have been known, and the outcome would have been what was pre-planned beyond or outside of you.
I’ve struggled with this issue for about 20 years now and, approaching age 50, I’m now settled that:
a) I don’t know it all
b) I don’t have the answer to this one, and
c) there either is a God who has it all under control or there’s not. Summarising Blaise Pascal’s “Wager of Faith”, if there’s no God and if I believe in him then I’m just thought of as a fool for the next 50 years until I die. If there is a God who has it under control and I DON’T believe in him, then I am a fool for all eternity. I’ve made my choice. … and meanwhile stuffing things up along the way, accepting (admittedly begrudgingly a lot of the time) that it’s all pre-planned anyway!
In the meantime, I live one day at a time, content that, in my absence of my complete knowledge and understanding, it will all work out in the end … and that I can’t control it anyway … no matter how hard I try. (eg did you plan this communication from me? Could you have? So how does “free will” work on this minor transaction?)
Anyway, I’m not trying to convince you … well actually, I am … but thought your article was well worth reflecting on and responding to.
So thank you.
Best wishes. Andrew (Perth, Western Australia)
Hello! Yes, I’ve had several close calls, some self inflicted. I don’t have all the answers, but believe in my case, God had other plans for my life yet. Since those times, I have come to know Him more and to encourage others to know Him too. So thankful to have been given more time! Thanks for the chance to share. Blessings, deb
After 50+ years as an unthinking Christian, I have become an agnostic, not sure if a God exists, but certain that my former beliefs were fantasy. Still, events that have happened in my life have led me to feel convinced that someone is directing/influencing events in my life – a deceased relative with specific interest in certain areas of my life perhaps? So, while I have lost belief in a “divine power,” (what sort of “loving” God would allow tragedies like th Holocaust, 9/11, etc?) I am convinced that there is some sort of “spiritual” influence in my life. Not everything happens by “luck.”
I AM A FIRM BELIEVER IN THE GOD OF CREATION AND THAT HE HAS A PLAN FOR EACH AND EVERYONE OF US. I BELIEVE WE ARE SAVED FROM TRAGEDY BECAUSE HE HAS SOMETHING FOR US TO ACCOMPLISH HERE ON THIS CELESTIAL BALL WE CALL —- EARTH!!!
GOD LOVES US MORE THAN WE CAN EVER IMAGINE!!! HE IN THE FORM OF JESUS CHRIST DIED ON THE CROSS TO SAVE US FROM OUR SINS. ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS ASK HIM TO COME INTO OUR HEARTS AND BE OUR LORD AND KING AND WE WILL BE ON THE PATH TO LIVING IN HEAVEN WITH HIM!
In 2005 I was rushed to the hospital within a few hours of death from septicemia – Toxic Shock. I spent 3 days in ICU. I was out of the hospital a day later. I recovered very quickly and was back to work in about a week. I attribute my recovery to the Law of Attraction.
Hello
I read your emailed newsletters with interest most days, but have never been prompted to write to you until I read the article on cheating death.
How about, if you feel that you were there to save someone else? I was driving with my then fiance (now my husband) along a motorway in England. We had just returned from my parents where we had been celebrating our recent engagement.
The motorway is actually a road that leads to the Dartford Tunnel which goes under the Thames Estuary from Kent to Essex.
Before we arrived at the tunnel, we overtook a lorry, which I had already observed being driven badly in that the lorry was over the white lines. As we got to the front of the lorry, we saw a car spinning out of control in front of the lorry.
Instinctively I sped up to avoid the collision which would have been inevitable. But something in me, said to slow down. As we did the car crashed into the side of us and we crashed on to the central crash barrier. The lorry drove on, without knowing what had happened.
As we stopped, the spinning car had stopped behind us. To this day, I believe that if we hadn’t slowed down, the other car would have spun under the wheels of the lorry and a whole family would have been killed. Was this divine intervention?
No one was injured except for a few minor whip lash injuries. The other car contained a three year old girl and her parents.
It happened in 2002, but it is still making me cry. I guess it could have been much worse!
Heavy rain, climbing the steps near the Greek Amphitheatre on the Univ. of Redlands campus.
About 20 concrete steps on a slope with metal handholds and a huge Eucalyptus tree to the side. Not more than 1/2 way up the steps when this tree, had to be about a 20 foot circumference, just cracked and fell over with a huge boom, crushing the metal handholds and the concrete like aluminum foil and eggshells. Several tons, roots taller than I am pointing up in the air, right in front of me! Not five feet away! If I had run up the stairs like I usually did, I would have been crushed. Just one of those things, huh?
I have a few experiences that could be called near death.
). I had on regular fitting boots, but they did have leather soles. I don’t remember now if I consiously rolled over on my belly or not, but pretty soon my boot did come out of the stirrup and I was okay other than banged up a little bit.
One time I was riding a horse through some trees near a fence. I had to duck under some branches to get between the trees and the fence. As I came out from under a branch I raised up, just in time to run into another branch I didn’t realize was there. My horse kept moving and I was dragged out of the saddle by the branch. As I fell off the horse, my foot was hung in the stirrup. This spooked the horse and he took of running. I knew that this situation often ends with death (I know of many who have died from this). Being a cowboy at the time, I had discussed such a scenario with others and there are many theories of how to survive such a thing. Some say always wear leather soled boots so they are slick enough to come out of the stirrup. Others say wear loose fitting boots so the boot will come off. Also, it you roll over on your belly, your foot will come out of the stirrup easier. Everything happened so fast that I don’t really know what happened. Everything seemed to be in fast motion to me (when a horse spooks it is pretty fast motion
Another experience I had with a horse was one time when I was riding a young colt. I was just putting some miles on this colt and wasn’t planning to do any work with him, but the situation arose where I needed to move part of the horse herd out of a hay field they had gotten into. Running horses can really charge up the horse you are riding. They often get very excited and this colt being young got very excited to the point where he wasn’t paying as much attention to things as he should have (not to mention that young colts haven’t really gotten used to handling the weight of a rider and saddle). As we were crossing a ditch at a dead run, he put both front feet right in the bottom of the ditch and began to stumble. Unlike my previous experience above, this time everything did go into slow motion for me. As the horse began to fall, I kept waiting for him to regain his feet. I have had horses go down enough to pretty much have their chest on the ground and still get back up without falling. Anyway, the colt didn’t regain his feet, in fact he completely rolled over, doing a somersault which threw me out in front of him. I knew from experiences others had had that the colt was likely to roll right over the top of me. As I was rolling on the ground in front of the colt (still in slow motion) I could see him rolling behind me. He was rolling a little to my right, so I rolled to my left and then everything came out of slow motion to normal speed as both he and I came up on our feet. Neither of us was hurt at all.
As I begin to relate these stories I am reminded of other things that have happened to me and I really never realized how many close calls I’ve had.
Another time I was riding a colt. There was a medium sized canal that I needed to cross and I thought we could just wade through it. It was probably about 3 1/2 or 4 feet deep, but the far bank was pretty much a sheer bank. As the colt was trying to climb out the other side of the canal, she fell back into the canal on her back with me underneath her. I was completely submerged under water. I think the water kept her from being to heavy for me to support, but I think the real danger in this situation was if she had landed just wrong on her back where she had me pinned under water and she couldn’t get up. Luckily, she got up pretty quick and I was once again, none the worse for wear.
Since I’m telling horse stories, I’ll keep up the subject. One time I was going into the mountains to pack out an elk I had killed for our winters meat. As I was crossing a hillside of frozen ground I came to a log that the horse had to step over. It was pretty big and as the horse struggled to get over the log, its feet slipped on the frozen ground (even with good shoes on) and it began to fall down. The hill was so steep that I was able to easily step off the high side and let the horse go. It slid and rolled down the hill and finally fell off a small cliff. When I got down to where the horse was, I fully expected to find him either dead or at least to have one or more broken legs. It was a very ugly wreck as he went rolling down the hill and over the small cliff. When I got down there, he was still down and I looked him over and couldn’t see any obvious broken legs or injuries, so I helped him up and he looked okay. He was hurt pretty bad, but nothing broken, so I led him up to the elk and packed it onto the other horses I had, and I walked out (several miles) leading my banged up saddle horse and the pack horses.
As I reflect on these stories I wonder if I have been spared many times from close calls or if this is just the typical life of a cowboy who necessarily works in dangerous conditions to get the job done. I think most of the guys I have worked with have had similar experiences. I do think that my survival was part savvy and part divine intervention.
One time (and this has nothing to do with near death, but is an interesting anomaly anyway) I was walking back to my dorm room in college after dark. I wasn’t paying much attention to where I was going, just going down the sidewalk when suddenly it felt almost as if I was losing my balance. I made two or three steps to the side to regain my balance and as I did, I saw that I had inadvertently stepped right around a girl who was walking toward me. I don’t think she even realized that I hadn’t seen her. I’ve often wondered it I sort of saw her with subconscious senses or if there was divine power at work in some way or if it was a total coincidence that I lost my balance just at that moment. Whatever it was, I’ve always thought it was interesting.
I’ve had plenty of other horse wrecks and near wrecks, but no others stick in my mind right now as near death, although many of them certainly could have been had they gone but a little differently.
Another definite near death experience I had was on a motorcylce. I was riding my street bike on some country roads one morning as the sun was low in the east. The road I was on made a 90 degree turn to the left, but there was another road which went straight. I went off the road I was on and didn’t slow down to go straight onto the other road. It seemed like a safe thing to do, but probably was somewhat unusual. Anyway, a few hundred feet up the new road was another road coming in on the left (which was on the east side). I had a helmet on, but the face sheild was pretty scratched and I couldn’t see very well to my left because of the scratches and the low sun. I figure I was travelling about 50 miles per hour when suddenly a car pulled out in front of me. It seemed to be in slow motion and almost seemed like some sort of magical nightmare. I seemed to have time to think that it was like a dream, but I didn’t even have time to react at all before I hit the car just in front of the windshield. Before this I had raced motocross quite a bit and having grown up in a very physical world, my reflexes are usually pretty quick, so I know this must have happened very quickly. There was a car coming along behind me and the lady driving it later told me that I did two complete flips in the air before I landed. I don’t remember anything at all about the wreck. I just remember seeing the blue front end of the car slide in front of me and the next thing I knew I was laying on the pavement, sort of crouched in a fetal position, but on my elbows and knees. I have seen enough other wrecks and been in enough of my own to know that when you first get hurt you don’t always feel it. So instead of jumping up and hurting something even worse, I just stayed down and slowly flexed all my muscles and work things around carefully. Pretty soon I decided I was okay, so I got up and the only thing really hurt at all was my lower back a little bit, and the balls of my feet. I must have landed on my back with my feet hitting hard. I was fine other than that, but I’ll never forget the look of the poor woman in the car that had pulled out in front of me. She looked at me like I was a ghost. I she almost seemed to think that I should be dead and that I was therefore some sort of supernatural being. She looked very suspicious!
So what do I make of all these experiences? I sometimes think there has to be some other higher power or force that is guiding certain aspects of our lives. I don’t believe at all that we have no free choice, but I do think that sometimes we get influences from outside ourselves which either help or hurt us. Sometimes people think that they did something very out of the ordinary and it saved their life. And it probably did. But sometimes they do something they would never normally do and it ends up killing them. So I think if there’s a higher power watching over us, that sometimes it’s for our benefit, but sometimes it’s to our detriment. You know the old saying, “When it’s your time, it’s your time”. So in the end, I’ve always had a lot of faith and I hope that I’ve been saved because there is still something God wants me to do. But on the other hand I also realize that just because I’ve been saved a time or two doesn’t mean my time isn’t near. I had a friend who had lived through an electrical shock, one that was very severe (he was a lineman for a power company). He told me that when he was in the hospital Jesus came and talked to him. After that, he never seemed to think anything could get him. A few years ago he was diagnosed with cancer. Of course he was worried, but he also had this very strong faith that God had more plans for him on this earth, so he didn’t go to any doctors beyond what he could find in Wyoming, even though his parents had the means and tried to talk him into going to Houston. I don’t know if Houston would have saved him, but I do think that he thought God would save him and he didn’t need to worry about it, just have faith. Well, God had a plan for him alright, but it wasn’t on this earth because he died in less than a year after he was diagnosed.
I tell all this just to point out that I don’t think you can discount that there is a God just because this or that happened. Neither do I think that you can just have blind faith that God will take care of you no matter what you get yourself into. “The Lord helps those who help themselves”. You are still responsible for yourself and you do have free will no matter what some people think. If we didn’t have free will, there would be no purpose in going through this whole existence.
I’ve rambled on enough.
In the winter of 1964 I was a 20 year old PFC in the Army, stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska. I was assigned to drive for a Captain while on maneuvers in the Alaskan wilderness while taking part in a large war game. The Captain sent me on an errand to another unit in our division. It was night and we were under orders for “blackout drive” which meant we could use the equivalent of half-covered parking lights for visibility. As I drove along the supply route that had been cut out of the Alaskan muskeg, I had a strange and over-powering impression to get off the supply route immediately. It was so strong that I could not resist it, cutting the wheels hard to the right and out into the muskeg. No sooner had I done that when three M60 tanks, the largest in the Army’s arsenal at the time, came over a rise from the opposite direction at near full speed one at a time. Each of them in turn shot upward, then slammed down right where I would have been. At that point, they cut hard to their right and away from me. I sat there for nearly 30 minutes, shaking. I was not a Christian at the time, but I thanked God over and over for warning me and for sparing me. I can clearly remember the impression that caused me to react to a danger that I did not know existed. Had I not obeyed that impression, I would have died and there probably wouldn’t have been enough left of me mail home to my parents.