September 14, 2022, what will happen today?

September 14, 2022, I don’t usually start by putting the date, now I’ll tell you why.

At three o’clock in the morning on September 14 a long time ago, there was a massive car wreck on a mountain highway in West Virginia. A young evangelist, along with his wife and nine-month-old baby were traveling to Ohio for a revival and as young people will do, they overestimated their ability to drive all night without sleep. The car in which they were driving ended up squarely hitting the abutment of a bridge high over a mountain ravine. The baby who was bedded down in the foot of the backseat (before the days of car seats and seatbelts) was thrown by the impact through the front window and onto the hood of the shiny apple-red Pontiac. When the young preacher gained consciousness, he was able to push against the door and stand out in the drizzling rain, seeing his baby on the hood of the car he picked her up and patted her back to try and comfort her and realized that her clothes were soaked in blood from the cut all the way across her scalp. Looking inside the car he saw his young wife under the dash, her face a mangled mess. The next day it was reported in the Loganville paper that three people had been killed in a car wreck on the mountain highway early in the morning September 14.

Fast forward to September 14, 1964, and see a young couple rejoicing over the birth of a beautiful baby boy, black hair, brown eyes and the soul of a saint. At the age of eight that little boy watched a family on a local television channel and decided that when he was old enough to drive, he was going to go to that family’s church in Atlanta, Georgia. By the time he was driving, that family had moved the church to Marietta, just a few short miles from where he lived! He started going to that church, joined the choir, the drama department, was involved in all the activities and fell in love with the granddaughter of the Pastor he had watched on television years before, and a few years later, in 1991, he married her!

On September 14, two weeks after that beautiful wedding when that young man married the preacher’s granddaughter, her ten-year-old brother’s appendix, which had burst two days before, gangrened and he was in the hospital dying, it took ten days in the St. Frances Hospital in Columbus, Georgia before he was finally able to go home. September 14, 1992, God saved his life.

On September 14, 2017, the wife of that boy, whose life God spared, was driving on the East-West Connector when she was so overcome by pain, she had to pull off the road and wait for her husband to come rescue her. She thought she was having another miscarriage, which would have been devastating. It turns out she was having an appendicitis attack and had to have emergency surgery, very dangerous for the unborn babies who were only 6 weeks into their development. The twins she was carrying are now four years old so, thanks be to God, they made it through that trauma just fine!

Today on this September 14 the baby thrown through the windshield is writing this article and celebrating the birthday of the little boy who grew up and married my daughter. The ten-year-old, my son, who survived the nearly fatal bout with a burst appendix, grew up to be a valuable Doctor of Chiropractic with his own practice and is a fabulous musician helping to lead worship at the Ararat Church 4336 King Springs Road, Smyrna, Georgia and his beautiful wife and twin sons are testaments that God saved their lives on September 14, 2017.

Do I think this date is jinxed? No, I know that God has shown us His love and mercy! As today, September 14, 2022, progresses, I will continue to thank God for His goodness, mercy and everlasting kindness to me and to my family! Amen!