ONE DAY this past winter, I was driving to work after school. I had been following a black Lincoln Town Car for some time, and I noticed the driving was careless. Keeping my distance, my route kept me following the driver down a short one-way street. About halfway down the street, the driver came to a sudden stop and put the car into reverse. Instantly, I checked behind me to see if I had some room to back up. There were no cars, so I put my SUV in reverse and looked ahead to see where the Lincoln was. To my horror, the car began moving toward me—and quickly! My tires began to spin backwards in my last attempt to escape the accident, but it was too late. The car slammed into the front of my SUV with a crushing thud.
The Lincoln pulled away from me and off to the side of the road, exposing its banged up bumper. My car was undamaged. The driver and I both got out of our cars and approached each other. When I asked the driver if he was OK, he replied, "Are you blind? You rammed right into me!" I stood there in disbelief. Our accident had blocked the street, and I suggested we move into a nearby parking lot. After moving our cars, we again approached each other. Over and over, the man accused me of being a bad driver and of causing his car lots of damage and insisted I had lied when I told him he was wrong. I felt so angry, but I didn't react. Instead, I tried to stay calm so I could respond politely.
It was a cold day, so I went to sit in my car while we waited for a police officer to arrive. As I sat there, I realized I had a choice: I could stay angry and think of this man as a dishonest, unkind person, which he definitely seemed to be, or I could see him the way I knew that God had created all of us—kind, forgiving, honest, and loving. When someone is being dishonest, thinking of them as kind and honest is not easy to do, but I knew that because the man was God's reflection, he must have many good qualities. Those qualities comprised his real identity. Not only that, I hadn't done anything wrong, and I knew that divine Love wouldn't allow me to be punished for something I hadn't done. Omnipotent Love was fully in control of the situation.
