Story collection celebrates miracles on wheels

Our collection of you-probably-won't-believe-this stories keeps growing.  This one is about the year's miracles on wheels.

It was last February — and a canceled medical appointment that gave my husband Terry time to take our Sonata in and see why a front tire kept losing air.  Turns out the rubber was shredding on the inside and it could have blown any minute — no slow-leak flat, but a violent accident-causing failure.  We had been about to drive the vehicle to the appointment in Spokane. 

In June we planned a trip to Missoula, and Terry said the Sonata needed new rear brakes before we left.  While those were being replaced at a reliable shop, I asked the mechanic to please check a brushing sound I had noticed for weeks. I thought something was caught under the car. Terry's hearing loss had kept him unaware. 

That turned out to be front wheel bearings — one “really” bad, and the other bad.  We were about to have a wheel fly off — again causing an almost-certain accident. In our Alaska days, we'd dodged a head-on by a split second when that happened to an oncoming car — and the driver lost control.

Then earlier this month, our close mother-daughter friends hit a deer at 60 miles an hour—crunching their small car.  Mom is 97 — neither were hurt.  We loaned them the Sonata (we had a second vehicle) until they figured things out.  On the third day, the tie rod came loose, resulting in no steering and a dangling wheel.  They had just backed into the street from their drive — so it was the perfect place to happen.

Again, this mechanical failure could have caused a very serious accident.  My brother had that occur in a borrowed motor home on the Continental Divide highway out of Banff, Canada.  He'd heard an inner voice tell him to get off the road.  He pulled into the only place there was — and suddenly the steering wheel spun uselessly in his hands.

Our car was towed to the nearest shop, where mechanics said whoever had last worked on it had not properly secured the tie rod.  After paying an unexpected repair bill we finally got our vehicle.  Terry took the old parts and the invoice to the previous mechanic who had fixed the wheel bearings.  He was deeply sorry for the mistake.  He knew there could have been potential personal injury.  He said, “I am an honest man” — and compensated us for the bill we had just paid.  We have no hesitation returning to him for auto repair.

We were barely over this when our roomies for the past 12 years — until we moved last fall — took a dive in their Subaru from the third-floor parking garage at Coeur d'Alene Resort — the car flipping and landing on its roof.  It was nearly unrecognizable.  Yet they were helped out and walked over to a nearby bench, where they calmly awaited an ambulance. We brought them home two days later.  One did not have a scratch, and the other will be wearing a neck brace for a few months.

They freely give the thanks and praise to God.  When Jesus healed the ten lepers only one returned to say thank you.  He asked, “Where are the nine?”  Good question.  When I do not proclaim my heartfelt thanks for intervention beyond my understanding to the God Jesus addresses as, “Our Father” — then I am ungrateful and negligent in the extreme.  I make my errors in life but let this never be one. 

Carol Shirk Knapp is the author of "The Preacher's Kid" column.