When I was a child growing up in rural Mississippi, I was involved in a very serious car accident. I was only ten years old when my mother assigned the chore of grocery shopping to me one Saturday morning. At that early age, I knew what to buy and what not to buy, and I made no exceptions! We had very little money. My father died at the age of 25 leaving three children under the age of five to be cared for by my mother. We did not own a car and town was two miles away. The man who owned the land where we lived and worked offered me a ride that morning.
I rode in the back seat of Mr. Landrum’s new Plymouth, and I don’t remember saying a word on the trip to town. My list was short and simple; I completed the shopping and placed the groceries in the trunk of the car for the ride home. My grandmother who lived near us rode in the back seat with me, and a cousin rode on the front seat with Mr. Landrum.
Central Mississippi is mostly flat land; however, there was a hill on the outskirts of town to the north. We began our descent down that hill, and something frightening happened. The car swerved from one side of the road to the other! I recall Mr. Landrum yelling, “I can’t steer it! It won’t stop!” The car careened from one shoulder of the road to the other as it picked up speed going down the hill approaching the bridge that spanned Box’s Creek. Strangely and fortunately, there were no other cars in sight.
There were no seat belts to restrain us, so we pitched from side to side as the car approached the bridge abutments of Box’s Creek Bridge. The road was built up high to protect it from the creek overflow during heavy rains and that elevation created an element of danger.
Just before we reached the bridge abutment, Mr.Landrum overcompensated and turned the steering wheel hard to the left! We missed the bridge abutment and made a complete U-turn, which led us to the edge of the road where we began our descent. The car rolled over repeatedly until it came to rest against a row of trees and a barbed wire fence adjacent to a cotton field.
Divine intervention surely saved us! First, there were no other cars in sight so that eliminated the possibility of a head-on collision. Second, we did not hit the solid concrete bridge abutment that would have caused destruction. Third, we received no injuries in the wreck. God demonstrated His power as He protected us that day. God left evidence of His presence in the mind of a child. I remember how the car made a complete revolution several times, yet we did not crash against the glass or metal, as we logically should have. Mysteriously, God enclosed us in a safe place within the car. He surrounded us with a hedge of protection, in the form of sparkling particles of white light!
From the moment we left the road, life changed! Time was somehow altered. The distortion did not halt the wreck. The accident still took place, only it happened in slow motion! Inside the car on that particular day, we appeared to be weightless and the laws of gravity no longer seemed to apply. I felt no fear or distress as my body tumbled in unison with the tumbling automobile! I was not injured when my head slowly landed against the ceiling of the car as it rolled over and over.
I distinctly remember seeing small, sparkling particles of white light swirling before my curious eyes. The lights were everywhere, all around us! My mind focused on the tiny light particles. I saw each one separately as one sees snowflakes drifting separately on a snowy winter day. Each tiny particle of light appeared to be unique and different. I was calm, and my thoughts were simply ‘wow, wow, and wow’;!
When the car landed upright, we managed to crawl out of it even though the top was crushed. We walked away unharmed!
In recent days, I have heard others speak of seeing the same sparkling particles of white light in times of crisis. It seems the light particles have the ability to separate into tiny sparkling particles or cluster together, taking shape as angelic beings, an obvious halo or one solid mass of white light. This explanation is conceivable for what I saw and experienced during the accident! The holy particles of light surrounded us that day, as plentiful as feathers in a pillow. They protected us from injuries in a wreck that logically could have killed everyone inside the car.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him, and rescues them. Psalm 34:7