A miracle in my life

A miracle in my life

Our lives are of full of the miracles of God if we just recognize them and give Him the glory for them. Time and time again I have experienced the power of God in my life. Some people may call miracles "lucky breaks" but I prefer to see the hand of God protecting and caring for me.

It was a beautiful spring day, Memorial Day weekend in 1969. My sister-in-law had just got married to a great guy and they invited my husband, Don, and I to join them on the Scioto River in Columbus, Ohio for a day of water skiing. I was three months pregnant and had made myself a new outfit. Those were the days when hot pants were the fashion craze. My neon colored top was sleeveless and perfect for a boat ride. I had also made a little drawstring bag to match my top. Hey, it was the 60s and I was styling!

I don't swim, but I was young and ready to celebrate with my family. The boat had just pulled away from the dock when we noticed that we were taking on water. My new brother-in-law had forgotten to put the plug in the bottom of the boat and we were all in trouble. 

Someone yelled "jump", but I knew I couldn't swim, so it seemed pointless to me to jump. Looking back on the experience I think that I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I knew I came up out of the water, under the boat. It had capsized over me and it was then that I felt my worst nightmare was going to happen. I was going to drown! I just started screaming at the top of my lungs.

I felt a hand grab my leg and pull me out from under the boat and in my mind I kept repeating "relax and let him save you, relax and let him save you." That is my version of the rescue. My husband said that I had hold of his throat and he thought I was going to choke him to death. He got me as far as he could and just sort of gave me a toss toward the shoreline. At that point I felt the strong arms of a man pick me up and carry me to the beach area where his wife was sitting on a blanket. They wrapped me up and I sat with them until I could get my bearings. 

The swimmers in the group were trying desperately to recoup our belongings from the boat as it was sinking. What had started out just a short time earlier as a pleasant outing, was turning into a disaster. 

I later asked my husband how he found me under the boat and he said that he had seen my neon colored bag in the windshield of the boat and just reached for it. As I went down with the ship, I had somehow held onto that bag which held our car keys and his wallet. 

Not only did God rescue me from the river that day and help us hang onto the things we needed, but the following week I felt my baby move for the first time. That relieved my mind that maybe the baby would have trauma from the incident. 

During my life, I have had miracles occur many times, but none as dramatic as my near brush with death in the water of the Scioto River.

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