Rescue on the Tracks

Me: Be careful on those tracks.

Prodigal: I will.

Me: After you move off of them, I will share a story.

This is from the book Where Angels Walk by Joan Wester Anderson

Carol Toussaint was driving her large station wagon across Arlington Heights, Illinois, about 5:00pm one hot summer weekday. She was going to pick up one son from his guitar lesson, and her other youngsters, Dave and Katie, were in the backseat. It was past the time when she should have started dinner, and her mind was on getting home as soon as possible.

The traffic light was green. Carol turned left off the busy highway up a little incline and onto the railroad tracks that intersect the downtown area. But before she could complete her turn and travel through the railroad crossing, her engine suddenly died. She was stuck–blocking several lanes, with her front wheels resting in the track grooves.

Carol tried again and again to start the car, but the ignition wouldn’t catch. The traffic light changed, cars began to honk, brakes screeched as rush-hour travelers attempted to go around her and avoid plowing into one another. Dave and Katie, hot, confined, and sensing their mother’s distress, started to complain. It was a driver’s worst nightmare.

Suddenly a young man wearing a white shirt and tie loped casually over to Carol’s open window. Dave, then only about five, thinks the man got out of a small brown car before approaching them.

“Did you know that you’re in danger here?” the man asked softly, with an air of complete peace and tranquility–in the midst of the rapidly snarling traffic.

“I sure am,” Carol responded. “My husband’s going to kill me for being late and not having dinner ready! If one of these drivers doesn’t do it first….”

“No, I didn’t mean that,” the young man went on. “There’s a train due through the crossing at frequent intervals. Some stopped, others didn’t. And yes, now she noticed that there were several people standing at the station a block or two away. But even if this coming train was due to stop, it couldn’t avoid hitting her–at this point it would still be traveling too fast!

Carol isn’t sure what she did next–she was in such a panic that she can’t remember. But she’ll never forget the reaction of the serene young man. Nonchalantly he walked to the front of her car and gave it a little one-handed push. The huge station wagon dislodged easily from the track grooves, and as the crossing gates came down and warning bells began to clang, it rolled back across the tracks and safely over the little incline, where it again came to a stop.

Almost immediately, the train roared past. Stunned, Carol realized that , without the young man’s help, her family would have been hit and killed. But where was he? The train had blocked her view for only a moment. How could he have disappeared in this open area without her seeing him?

By this time several passers-by and commuters were approaching Carol’s car. “Need help, lady?” they asked. “Maybe we can push the car across the street to the gas station…”

One commuter stood n the middle of the intersection and directed cars around the scene, while another went to alert the gas station. Mechanics and others pushed Carol’s car down he rest of the incline to the station. Although the man in the white shirt had dislodged the large vehicle with one hand, it took eight people to move it all the way across the highway.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

II TIMOTHY 1 : 7

Jennifer Van Allen

www.theprodigalpig.com

www.faithincounseling.org

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