Thread by @JulietteAkinyi

1. A miracle.

2. In 2009 or 2010, I was driving north on Vermont Avenue in South Central LA. I had a blue 2000 Kia Sephia which I had acquired used. It served me well until about 2012 when having the radiator fixed would have cost me more than what I had paid for it.

3. Side note: the Kia was my first automatic. I had been driving standards since buying my first car in 1981, but I switched to automatics because, by the mid-2000s, my left knee was making noise when I walked and had gone out on me once.

4. That last part probably happened for two reasons, however: stress from a couple of decades of pushing on clutches and, at the time, I weighed 210 lbs.

5. It hasn’t happened since I dropped 45 lbs. and since I’ve been driving automatics. No more knee noise either.

6. Anyway, I’m on my way from my old house which is located on 81st Street just west of Vermont to the CVS drugstore located in an outdoor mall on the southeast corner of the intersection of Vermont and Slauson Ave.

7. It’s around 12PM on a weekday. High noon. Normal traffic.

That period was a very turbulent one in my life, but, on that day, I remember feeling calm and, if not happy, content.

8. To get into the mall from the direction I was coming from, it’s a simple right turn and when you turn, there’s a McDonald’s on the left and a two- or three-story commercial building on the right.

9. After the turn, there’s a stop sign parallel to the back-end of McDonald’s, then onward into the parking lot.

10. I turn, then stop at the stop sign. Suddenly I hear all manner of cars turning in behind me and beside me. One of them almost rear ends me. I look in my rearview mirror and look past the cars behind me.

11. There’s a running gun fight happening on Vermont that appeared to have commenced the second I made the turn.

12. The turn and the commercial building made it impossible for me or my car to be hit by stray bullets.

13. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that something was holding the gunmen back until I got out of the way.

14. There was nothing to do but find a parking space and head on into CVS.

15. When I came out, the police were all over Vermont, so I had to take a detour to get back home.

16. This is only one example of the many times I’ve escaped disaster by the skin of my backside.

I’m not saying that I will always escape such things. I’m just telling about what I know and what I’ve seen.

17. At some point. I will tell of at least one more like this.

I think God wants us to tell of the times when we've seen glimpses of Him.

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