THE PRICE ON MY HEAD

I’m going to share with you a story that I held secret for over twenty years. Why did I keep it hidden so long? Because I had no explanation, or even understanding, for what really happened—it blew my logic-based mind, and so I suppressed its very memory to keep from having to change the way I was living at the time.

When I was a teenager, my idea of having fun was a bit distorted. For example, a certain friend and I loved to go joy-riding and see how fast we could take the curves on one-lane country roads. We measured our success by two things: 1) the highest speed we could obtain in each curve and 2) the overall time it took to travel a selected length of the road (i.e., anywhere from five to ten miles). 

One late-summer day in 1987, my friend and I were playing our usual game on a winding road that had its fair share of sharp curves. This road traversed several lush farms, but we paid no attention to the to the freshly mowed fields. We came screeching around a blind curve about 50 mph when we saw a large tractor in our oncoming path. There was no time for us to slow down and no way to get over, because a deep creek lined the passenger side of the road.

Attached to the back of the tractor was some sort of implement. (I think it was a kind of hay rake, and for the purpose of the story, I’ll just make this assumption.) It was offset and completely reached past the tractor’s tires and to the opposite edge of the road. It was raised to the level of our heads as we were seated in the car. 

I saw the hay rake coming for us, and could see that it stretched completely across the hood of the car. I instantly knew that we were about to be decapitated and braced myself for the impact. I saw the rake come all the way up to the front windshield, and then it seemed to disappear. I quickly turned around and saw it behind us. It passed right through the car without touching us!

My friend kept driving until we found a place to pull over. We sat for a moment just staring at each other with incredulousness. Eventually, we were able to exit the car and walk on wobbly knees as we thoroughly inspected the entire car. Not one dent, scrape, or scratch. How was that even possible? The tractor tire alone was far enough over to drive upon the car. Somehow on that one-lane stretch of road, a tractor laden with a hay rake and a car passed each other without fail. While the incident threatened to take off my head physically, the incident definitely did the job emotionally. I had a choice to make: tell the story of how my life was spared, and then be forced to change the way I was living in appreciation, or let the memory of the event die in my place. 

Until November of 2008, the story lay dormant in forgotten memories. Then one night, I had a dream that a family member (who suffers from severe mental illness) called my mom and wanted to know how my husband, daughter, and I were doing and a couple other things. A simple dream at first glance, but it left a lingering impression on me. The next day in real life, this person actually did call my mom out of the blue, and the conversation included all the things I had heard in my dream the night before. In addition, though, this person revealed to my mom that he was “told” to kill me with an axe (cut off my head), and that he didn’t think he could do it.

The moment my mom finished describing the strange conversation, I heard the Lord speak very clearly to me: “I saved you once from having your head cut off and I can do it again.” IMMEDIATELY, the story about the tractor was resurrected in my mind in clear detail. I couldn’t decide what was more amazing—that a loved one wanted to cut off my head or that I could have forgotten such a miraculous story or that I dreamed the conversation before it happened or that the Lord was speaking directly to me. The one thing I had no trouble deciding, though, was that He was at work in my life. 

The Lord loves me, and He loves you too. He even loves us when we don’t love Him back. He knew us in our mother’s womb, and when we were woven together at creation, His eyes saw all the days ordained for us. And yes, He has a plan for our life: plans to prosper us and not to harm us; plans to give us hope and a future.

Although there was a hit out on me (not once, but twice), Jesus paid the price on my head. He paid it for you, too. 

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16 NIV

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