Dear Millie,

I have three “God” stories I’d like to share with you. The first happened when I was 12, the second when I was 22, the third when I was 32 years old.

• It was my twelfth birthday and I was given a brand new ten-speed bicycle. Along with the bike I was given strict instructions by my mother that I was not, under any circumstances, to ride it on a nearby busy road called Route 102. But with the urging of a friend I was soon gliding along 102. All of a sudden I felt the most intense feeling of complete and total euphoria. I looked down to discover I was in the air perhaps thirty feet above the road. Below me was a Volkswagen Bug. In its cracked windshield was something that looked like a blonde wig of hair, a crumpled body was in front of the car. I watched as the women in the VW got out and went to the body. Other cars stopped and people rushed to help. I saw my friend, frozen in fear, still holding her handlebars tightly. And then, in an instant, the wonderful sensation I was having vanished and I was back in my body, standing up, bloodied, my head scalped, my spinal cord exposed. I was taken to the hospital and despite having come close to severing my spinal cord and losing the top of my head I was going to be okay.
*From this lesson I learned never to fear physical death. And, of course, to do as I was told!

• When I was twenty-two I decided to drive my car across the United States, from Florida to California to attend summer school at Pepperdine University. A week before leaving I woke up one morning and told my mother that I had had a dream that felt like a premonition. I dreamt that if I made the trip I would have a car accident. Two more nights passed and both nights I had the same dream. My mother suggested I change the outcome by flying a friend out from California to drive across country with me. I flew my girlfriend DD out. But when I woke the day of our trip I told my mother that my dream had become more vivid and that now, I even knew where the accident would happen – between San Antonia and El Paso, Texas. I set off that day anyway with a promise to call my mother when I reached San Antonio. When we reached San Antonio we reported in. We were both fine. We washed up in a gas station and vowed to continue on. DD drove and it was my turn to sleep. I woke to the sound of squealing tires. The car was jerking back and forth. Instinctively, I didn’t sit up. I put my hand on DD’s lap and told her to hang on, thinking we were having a blow-out. But DD didn’t answer and within seconds we were rolling over again and again before the car came to an abrupt stop. I got out of the car and looked at the tires. They were all fine. “I don’t know what happened, all the tires are fine,” I said to DD. “I fell asleep,” she cried. A man pulled up hurriedly and jumped out of his car. He looked at us as if we were ghosts. “I can’t believe you’re alive. I just watched your car weave across the road until it went up an embankment and flipped three times in mid-air. And then it was as if God picked it up and set it down gently on all fours.” We followed him to the next gas station where the car was checked out and where we checked into a hotel. There wasn’t a dent on the car, or us.
*I never question my instincts anymore as I believe they are often a communication from someone trying to protect me. I learned from this accident that God will choose my time as he did on that day.

• By the time I was thirty-two I had experienced great sadness and disappointments in my life. Professionally I was thriving but personally I was very unhappy. I was married for the second time and for the second time I was planning a divorce. I began experiencing a pain in my leg and eventually ended up at Massachusett’s General Hospital in Boston where doctors confirmed I had a tumour in my bone marrow. I went in for the operation telling only my two closest friends and my family that I was going. When I woke from the operation I was told I had cancer. And although it sounds horrible, I felt a sense of relief knowing I would no longer have to continue on with my life. I was prepared for an aggressive year-long chemotherapy that would begin when the final DNA results came back from the laboratory. Over the next few days something happened that I’ll never forget. People started sending letters and flowers and stuffed animals and food. People I hadn’t talked to since I was a young girl wrote me notes to tell me how important I was in their life. People I didn’t know sent me cards saying they were friends of my friends and that I was in their prayer circle at their church. Friends, family and acquaintances told me how I had affected their life positively and how important I was to them. I was overwhelmed with love. Five days later my doctor came running into my room out of breath. He looked at me and smiled. “I never get to say this,” he said, shaking his head “Benign!” “What do you mean benign? I thought it was malignant.” “On the table it said malignant. The DNA results say it’s just on the other side of benign.” He said. “Let’s go with it! You’re out of here!”
*I’ve never looked back since that day. Each day is a blessing. I appreciate everything I have. I appreciate knowing that with each day that passes I may be helping someone else in their journey even though I may never know it. The experience opened my eyes to the good around me when I thought I was only surrounded by the bad.