This Close…

On a busy Fall shopping Saturday, a car sped the wrong way down a normally very busy street. Miraculously no traffic was coming in the opposite (right) direction. The car drove the whole length of the one way street, eventually turned off and pulled away. The people who saw this looked at each other and either smiled or shook their heads, all of us probably thinking the same thing— what a lucky guy.

It led me to think how many times in our lives do we make mistakes like that— literally or metaphorically driving the wrong way down a one way street without knowing it—but nothing happens to us? We don’t get hit or caught or penalized or ticketed or hurt or ruined or *killed*…

When bus doors close in your face at the last second because you were a half step too late, or you get splashed by a wall of water on a rainy day when the truck drives through a puddle nearby, you often complain “Why does this always happen to me?” But you never think how often have I gotten away with stuff? How many times have I narrowly missed trouble, danger or disaster simply because I lucked out? In my lifetime how often have I come “this close” without ever knowing it?