He Will Be Here

By Barbara J. Forsyth

Just north of Los Angeles, California, lie the San Antonio Mountains. Within the mountain range is one particular peak known as Mt. Baldy, so-named because it has little vegetation on it. I have been a frequent visitor to Mt. Baldy. It is a thirty-minute drive from my home, and I have often gone there to meditate on God’s Word and pray.

It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving, November 28, 1999, and I was driving my van to Mt. Baldy to enjoy a day of hiking. A CD of Steven Curtis Chapman’s I Will Be Here was playing.

As I passed through an intersection, another driver, a 70-year-old man, was making a left turn into the intersection. His car impacted the side of my van, lifting it into the air.

I remember seeing white, moving clouds through the windshield and a sensation of floating upward. It seemed like the realities of weight and time had been suspended. I felt a presence of protection around me as if I were surrounded by angels assigned to protect me.

Suddenly, I seemed to be moving quite rapidly through a dizzying, spiral tunnel. Then, crash. Metal met concrete and weight and time were restored as glass shattered and metal crunched all around me.

An unknown witness to the accident called the police. I was stunned, and perhaps in shock. For several minutes I was not aware of what was happening. I was trapped inside the wreckage, but, thankfully, an off-duty paramedic was nearby and came to the window of my vehicle. “Are you ok? Are you OK?” he asked.

“Yes, I’m alive,” I said. “God saved me.” I could talk, I discovered, but I could not move. Fear set in, but the paramedic continued talking words of comfort to me.

“Keep your head still,” he said. “Here, I’ll hold it still for you.” He held my head still and talked to me until the ambulance arrived. The police and the ambulance arrived, and the paramedic crew set to work freeing me from the wreckage of my van. This took some time. When they had freed me, they put my neck in a brace and transported me to a nearby emergency room for treatment.

In the ER, as they transferred me from the gurney to the examining table, small pieces of glass tumbled from my hair and clothes. It was an unbelievable reality. I knew God was with me and had future plans for my life. However, the recovery was long and left me with pain in my legs, arms, back and shoulders for many months.

At the scene of the accident, I had asked one of the police officers about the off-duty paramedic who had suddenly seemed to disappear. He looked at me puzzled. “What paramedic? There was no paramedic here.”

For a long time after the accident I could not drive; others had to drive me everywhere I needed to go. Friends picked me up to drive me to the Bible Study I regularly attended. Also, many people supported me with their prayers, asking God to deliver me from any possible permanent effects of the accident. For many months pain continued, but I remained active. I trusted in my awesome Savior and I have regained strength in walking, writing, typing and riding my bike. I could have let grief take over my aching body, but instead I let God accomplish a mighty healing process through my pain.

From A Book About Grief and Joy

I knew her as Barbara J. Gurney, one of the young people from the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Park, Michigan, in the early 1960's. When I joined the church in 1960, Barb was already a member there. Forty plus years later, Barbara J. Forsyth is one of several people from that church group with whom I have regular contact via the Internet.

Knowing I had self-published several books, Barb asked me if I would be willing to edit a book she had written, which she titled Joy Comes in the Mourning. I agreed to help her.

Her book is about death and grieving and how to find joy from the Lord even in the midst of sorrow. Barb has had a ministry to women who have gone through the grieving process, and wants to minister to others now through her book.

Using a series of stories, articles and poems, most of them authored by Barb, but some written by others, the book seeks to direct the reader's attention to the Word of God and to seek the joy that God does provide in mourning.

Barb publishing the book in the summer of 2011. It is now available for purchase from the author, from Amazon's Create Space, and from our Bookstore.

Barb and her husband have lived most of their married lives in the greater Los Angeles, California area. She recently retired from her career as an elementary school teacher.

The article included here is about a serious auto accident in which Barb was involved in 1999.

Some days after the accident, my husband took me to see the car and retrieve personal belongings from it. I stumbled as I walked, but I was able to hold a bag while he put items from the car in it. The vehicle was totaled. The windshield was completely gone, some of it having been swept away by an employee in the ER where I had been taken. Objects were piled high in the back of the van. On the top of the pile of objects, I picked up the CD that had been playing at the time of the accident, I Will Be Here.

I have often wondered if, perhaps, the one I thought was a paramedic was actually an angel sent by God to protect me. Perhaps he was simply what he seemed to be, an off-duty paramedic who went on his way once the police and the ambulance had arrived. But there are a couple of verses in the Bible that make me wonder sometimes if it were not really an angel who ministered to me on that November day on the way to Mt. Baldy.

Sometimes God will allow pain and suffering and the results of the sin in this world to come into our lives. It may be that He wants to show His glory in healing or in your faithfulness to Him. Pray that God will reveal to you His purpose for your life. Pray that you will be given the wisdom to conquer whatever pain or suffering you are encountering in your life.

Death is all around us. However, so are healing, rebirth and newness of life. Look to the things that will grow again. Look to an eternity in heaven.

The photo of Mt. Baldy, also known as Mt. San Antonio, is from Wikipedia and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution and Share Alike License. The image is owned by D. Searles, but released to Wikipedia under the above named license and used here under that license. For more details about work published under a CCBYSA License, please go to Wikipedia.