I recently came across a story of a man who was in a retail store shopping. He was simply standing at the check-out counter, and the next thing he knew was that he was on the ground and a car was on top of him! A driver had lost control and had plowed through the front of the store, running him over in the process. The car had broken his hip and leg.
The man had struggled over the last year financially as his business had fallen on hard times and he had become quite distraught as he struggled to make ends meet. As he rode in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he wondered what he was going to do. Not yet knowing the extent of his injuries, he knew that he would be out of work completely for quite some time.
As the doctors examined him in the emergency room, they decided to give him a full body CAT scan to see if he had any internal injuries. It was at that time they discovered the life-threatening aneurism near his heart. The doctors told him that he had the aneurism a long time, and according to the size of it, he should have already been dead.
The car hitting him had actually saved his life, as the CAT scan enabled the doctors to see his life-threatening condition. He was taken into emergency surgery where doctors repaired the aneurism, thus saving his life.
Up until that time he had never believed in God. But he had an instant change of heart. Now he believed that God’s grace had saved his life, even though he encountered much pain and suffering from the injuries from the car crash.
And, to top it all off, he was given a handsome settlement from the insurance company.1
This story illustrates the fact that, even in the face of apparent disaster or loss, abundant blessing is mine, as God’s Word tells me, “We are hard pressed on all sides, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” (2 Cor. 4:8,9)
The moral of the story is, tragedy is often a set-up for a miracle!
1 Darrell Creswell – A Study of Christian Grace Website