ANGELIC INTERVENTION
by Rita Teubner
There have been so many times in my life where there has been need for angelic intervention – I have attention deficit disorder and although I did not drive until I was 21 (luckily for all the other drivers on the road) a lot of the angelic interventions have taken place when I have been behind the wheel of a car. That intervention can take place in many different ways, some times it has been with the aid of another human being that has come to my rescue, other times just mystical, mysterious assistance has been there for me.
One of the first that comes to mind was a major intervention for me, although it was about 20 years before I actually thought about the circumstances and acknowledged that it was just that. At that time in my life gymnastics played a significant role, I was a gymnast, taught gymnastics, coached gymnastics and also judged gymnastics. It was wintertime and I had just judged a late meet about 45 minutes away from home. I had a black VW bug at the time and was driving home on a newer road in the area, out in the countryside, when all of a sudden the engine just stopped working. I was able to pull the car off to the side of the road and got out of the car. The road was absolutely deserted, and I just opened the hood of the car, and stood looking, I knew nothing about how a car runs, and was wondering what on earth I would do. Two cars went past me and did not even slow down. This angelic event took place around 1975. I stood there in the dark, not a light from a home in site, in the middle of nowhere, with about a 12 mile walk home and was just about ready to set off on foot when a VW bus pulled up behind me. This very tall, long haired fellow got out of the bus and I was thinking “oh, my God, I am done for now…..”
Fortunately for me the events that followed were like a dream. This fellow comes up to me and says “what’s the problem here?” I told him I had no idea what was wrong with the car. He proceeded to inform me that he was a VW mechanic and used to work at the VW dealership, had just recently left him, was doing work at home and was going to school in Youngstown, which was the nearest big town. He usually was home much earlier, but that night had been asked by a friend to tow his car somewhere, so had the tow-bar on the VW van and was later than normal. He hooked the car up to the tow bar and towed the car to my home. He had taken a look at the engine, it appeared that the engine had died and needed rebuilt, and he offered to do it for me for $300, which even in the 1970s was a good deal. When I look back on this incident years later, I realize how blessed and lucky I was to have this angel appear in human form and assist me as he did.
There were several incidents, all when I was driving, that come to mind and I will share them with you now. One was in Cleveland, I was driving in a blizzard, it was a white out, was on a major road in the Cleveland area. I decided to pull over to the side of the road and as I looked into the rear view mirror I saw two headlights bearing down on me, and my life literally flashed before my eyes. I put my head down on the steering wheel and waited for the impact to take place. After about a minute and no impact, I looked up again and into the rear view mirror, there was nothing there but snow falling. I sat there for about 30 minutes not able to move, shaking like a leaf. Once the plow and salt truck came I got back on the road, but have never forgotten that incident and the feeling as I looked and saw those lights coming at me. To this day I do not know what happened to the truck that was behind me, but I did realize that it was just not my time to leave when this incident occurred.
Another such event took place when I drove my younger sister and her friends to a concert in Cleveland. It was over late at night, I was not able to find them after the concert until 1:00 and had over an hour drive home. I was on a country road, they had all fallen asleep and the car was quiet, I was having trouble keeping awake, was nodding off and catching myself every once in a while. At one point, I felt a hand on my shoulder after nodding off and looked up to see the car going off the road and heading for a tree. The hand on my shoulder got my attention and I was able to safely steer the car away from the tree, missing it by inches. That certainly got my attention and kept me awake for the rest of the ride home.
As we move on, the next time I needed the angelic intervention, was when I was going on a trip overseas and needed to drive to the Pittsburgh airport. My sister, and it is surprising that she would even get in a car with me by this time, and her girlfriend were with me. I was driving a big station wagon and we were sitting together in the front seat. Somehow I got lost, and was getting more and more frustrated, which of course made the attention problems flare up tremendously. I was going uphill and saw a sign, decided to turn around, so I did a U turn into a gas station and there had been no traffic coming down the hill when I turned, so I just pulled right out onto the street. I heard my sister’s friend say “there’s a truck” and looked to see a huge Mack truck bearing down on us down the hill. My first instinct was to put the brake on, and had I done that the truck would have hit the driver’s door on the car. I felt a hand on my foot, and it pressed my foot down so that I floored the gas pedal and the truck hit us in the rear side panel of the car, right where the gas tank was. The car spun around and the next thing I knew there was someone opening the car door yelling for us to get out, they were afraid the gas tank was going to explode. None of us were hurt, I had a scrape on my shin from it hitting the dash , but none of us needed medical attention. I called my Dad, he came and picked us up and got me to the airport and took care of getting the car taken care of while I was away. My Dad was my hero, he was always there for us, and how he was able to find us that day, still remains a mystery to me, I had no idea where I was when I called him.
Life seemed to settle down a bit for me and it was a couple of years before I needed to say a thank you to those watching over me. I was driving home from taking a class, and needed to cross a set of railroad tracks. This particular set of tracks did not have the barrier that would go down, it just had the flashing lights and for some reason that night I did not see the lights flashing and was driving across the tracks, looked to my right and saw a train about 3 feet from my car, to this day I do not know how I got off the tracks in time, but again can remember shaking for a couple of hours afterward from the adrenaline rush of looking and seeing that train bearing down on me.
As my children were growing up there were many incidents that took place, too numerous to count, but it was years before I actually realized that I indeed had some heavy duty guardians that were kept very busy on my account.
In one year there were many that took place, for some reason these particular events stayed with me. I was working at the time and my driver’s license was about to expire. My life was extremely busy to say the least, and I found myself running to get the picture done for the driver’s license the last Saturday before it ran out. They close at 4:15 on a Saturday and here is Rita, driving up at 3:00 in the afternoon. I parked the car and walked up to the door. There was one of the workers standing outside telling people that the electricity was off and had been off since 10:00 that morning. I was devastated, because that meant I would be driving without a license to get to work the next week. I sat in my car and prayed for a miracle, for the electricity to come back on. I turned my head and looked at the building one last time before putting the car in gear and driving away, and THE LIGHTS CAME ON. I just sat there stunned, got out of the car, walked up to the man standing outside and asked him would they work if the power came back on. Needless to say, I got my license and drove happily off, thanking my angels profusely for their assistance.
That particular winter we were plagued with snow and ice. One such time I had pulled my car out of the garage and up the driveway before it snowed, because our driveway was on a hill and very hard to get up once it snowed. I went out to the store and came back. My husband’s car was at the end of the driveway and he was looking a bit flustered to say the least. There was a coating of ice on the driveway and he could not get his car up the hill. I told him I would try, but after three tries let the car slide down to the end of the driveway, got out and asked him to go get ashes from the fireplace to spread on the driveway. He was really worked up at this point and I needed to give him something to do other than rant and rave about needing to get the car out of the driveway. I got back into the car, and asked for help, I had decided to give it one last try. I put the car in gear, pressed the gas pedal and it felt as if a big hand was under the car, I went right up the driveway without slipping or sliding once. I got out of the car, walked into the house, where hubby was looking through the telephone book for someone to call to plow the driveway out. I said “I got the car up the hill,” he never even looked up and went on about having to get someone out to clear the driveway, I had to tell him once again that the car was at the top of the driveway, his jaw almost hit the floor, it really was funny to see the look of disbelief on his face.
Our son was a gymnast and had a meet to go to in Columbus, Ohio. We drove down on Saturday, stayed overnight and he competed Sunday morning. The competition was finished early and we were on the road at about 12:30. There were four cars that left together and headed for home. I got onto the beltway in Columbus, and soon saw a sign for Wheeling and checked with hubby to make sure that is the way I was supposed to go. I looked at the clock and it said 12:45. I cannot tell you what happened but all of a sudden I realized that I was back where we originally had started and we had lost a half hour, the clock read 1:15. Hubby and I just looked at each other, could not figure out what had happened, and were stunned when we saw the time. It was as if we had simply lost a half hour. We continued on our way, went past the place where I had turned off originally and the sign definitely did not say Wheeling the second time around. We decided to stop for lunch about half way home it started snowing as we stopped for lunch. We sat and waited for ½ hour for the waitress to take our order, and the restaurant was not busy. We were pretty annoyed with her to say the least, but managed to eat and get back out on the road about 1-1/2 hours later. As we got nearer to Pittsburgh the traffic just stopped dead, the road was a sheet of ice and we were not moving at all. We sat for 2 hours going nowhere, and was told there was a 20 car pileup up ahead. You can imagine what kind of mood we were in by the time we finally reached home! The following Tuesday we went to practice and I was talking to the gal in the office and told her what had happed, she just looked at me and said that we were really lucky. The other three cars that had left at the same time we did, including the coach and his family, were involved in the accident and everyone had been taken to the hospital. Luckily they were not badly injured, but we realized that that time went missing for a reason, someone did not want us to be involved in that accident and had been looking out for us, surely this was divine intervention!
The last event that happened that particular winter with the car was when we had an ice storm, there was ½ inch of ice on my windshield and I had to drive to work. Unfortunately, I had a problem with a leaky radiator and the defroster wasn’t working. I managed to chip a hole about the size of a silver dollar and drive to the end of the street where there was a gas station and brought a can of deicer, managed to clear a bigger hole to look through and managed to drive down Rt. 8 for about 5 miles praying the whole time that I would not hit anything. I kept the side windows open, so it was freezing in the car. I got to the bottom of Rt. 8 and need to turn onto another road, which I managed to do and was sitting at a traffic light on a busy street, not able to see anything but straight through this hole I had created in the windshield. I was so tense it was unbelievable and I started to cry and begged for help. All of a sudden the ice on the windshield was melting, there was hot air coming out of the defroster, and I was able to finish the drive safely to work. As this was happening, I heard a voice say “All you had to do was ask.” When I got out of work, I had to drive all the way home in a freezing car, because of course, the heater and defroster were not working.
I believe that we all have angels and guides waiting in the wings to give us assistance, but they are not able to assist us unless we ask for their help. May you all learn to ask for that assistance when it is needed, so that you, too, may be swept up into their angelic embrace and moved gently away from danger.
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