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"A Close Call" - - by Rev. Weldon Bares


I was driving through a construction area on a highway. A construction worker held up a stop sign to stop the traffic. As I was stopped on the highway, I could see in my rear-view mirror a pick-up truck barreling in my direction. He didn’t notice the stopped traffic until the last second.

I cringed as I watched him slam on his brakes. He ended up only a couple of feet away from my trunk. The three guys in the truck looked to be around 17 or 18 years old, caps on backwards, music blaring. Seemingly not a care in the world, until he saw my red taillights. Did I say he ended up two feet from my trunk? It was a very close call.

Now you would think that after such a near-miss of what could have been a very serious accident, the driver would have perhaps learned a little tiny lesson, or perhaps gleaned something positive from this close call.

But no, that did not happen. Instead, when the construction worker held up the “slow” sign (in other words, the “go” sign), the driver of the truck gunned it once again, music blaring away. He passed me, cap on backwards, speeding once again like a bat out of Hades.

I thought of times in my own life when I didn’t learn my lesson from a close call. As I drove down the road, I prayed for that kid, and for myself.

May God help us to learn lessons from the close calls in life.

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