Strange but True #PrayerStories

Has God ever done something extraordinary to get your attention? Some heavenly sign that changed the way you looked at life?

On a cold winter’s day in January 1983 I woke up in the ICU. About a week had passed since my car accident — leg in traction, tubes coming out all over my body. My car had slid down a hillside road on a patch of black ice, and skidded into oncoming traffic. The impact was so hard, my seat belt broke. I had severe internal injuries, crushed pelvis and femur, and required a complete blood transfusion. I spent a month in the hospital, then several more months on a hospital bed in my parents’ dining room. The whole thing had been hard on them — but I came away from the experience believing that God had spared my life for a reason, and I needed to figure out what it was.

The truth was, my life was at a crossroads. I had flunked out of college after a single semester — my parents had told me to get a job, and figure out what I wanted to do. So I took a job near the local mall at a steakhouse, and hadn’t even completed the training week when I had my little mishap while driving home from work one afternoon. The last thing I remember was seeing a flashing light at the side of the road (put there to warn drivers of the traffic signal around the blind turn). And the only thing I remember about that first week was … well, this is the extraordinary part of the story.

In seventh grade my Sunday school teacher was Mrs. Craig. She was a science teacher by trade, and had an amazing way of explaining how the world works. Long story short, she wound up becoming a missionary to Korea, working at a blind mission with her husband. As far as anyone knew, she was on the other side of the world when I had my accident … but the one clear memory I have of the ICU is of waking up one night to find Mrs. Craig standing at the foot of my bed, shaking her head sadly. “Oh, dear girl,” she said reproachfully. “What have you done to yourself? It’s time to get your life back on track! God is giving you a second chance. Don’t waste it.” And then I fell asleep.

The next day I told my mother that Mrs. Craig had been there. “But you didn’t have any visitors last night, Heidi,” she said. I insisted, so she checked with the nurse. Nope. No one.

But I knew. And nothing she could say to me would convince me otherwise. I wasn’t Catholic at that time, and didn’t know about visions or apparitions … but even then I knew when God was tapping me on the shoulder to get my attention. A few months later, when I was able to hobble around on crutches, I flew to Minneapolis to start missionary school. Clearly my life needed a reboot, and I didn’t need to be told twice.

Now, there is a lot more to the story, as I’m sure you can imagine. That accident proved to be an important milestone in my personal development — for the decade that followed my entire life story was divided into BA and AA (before accident and after accident). These “strange but true” interventions happened many times after that …

• The time God sent a chocolate cake angel to deliver food to my family when we ran out of money.
• The time I learned about the intercessory power of a Miraculous Medal when I used it to ask Mary to send someone to sit with me at Mass. She did it — three weeks in a row.
• The time God healed my left hip a couple of days before surgery — and I got mad at him for wasting the miracle.
• The time God sent a couple of strangers in a VW bug to guide my team bus to the only retreat house in Germany that still had room to accommodate 27 guests. For free.
• The time God sent a friend out of choir practice to rescue me when I was a short-term missionary teacher in Senegal.

I don’t know why I’ve been on the receiving end of so many miracles, or why my #PrayerStory has so many twists and turns. I suspect God thinks he needs to write BIG AND BOLD to get my attention sometimes. And thank God for that kind of divine patience. So I try to pay it forward by telling others about it — and I find that when I do that, other people wind up sharing in the blessings. Like the time I told the Miraculous Medal story in one of my books, and a fellow seminary student read it and asked God to send someone to sit with her at lunch that day … and that someone turned out to be me. Strange but true. God has a big heart for his “special needs” children.

Now, I have another book that I’d like to tell you about, The Ave Prayer Book for Catholic Mothers. It’s available for a special preorder sale right here at Ave Maria Press from now until October 15. Use the code “AveMothers,” and get free shipping plus a special sale price of $18. You might want to get several — these things will make great Christmas gifts!

And then, if you have time, I’d love to hear YOUR #PrayerStory. Has God ever done something “strange but true” and wonderful in your life? I’d love to hear about it!