"I felt a huge arm wrapped around me..."

It was one sunny day in June, 1991. I was working at the time at the Dulles Airport as a scanner, scanning luggage and hand checking people who didn't clear. The night before a girlfriend and I had gone out and partied. Being single women, that was all we had to look forward to (we thought). It was just something for us to think about during work so we could make it through the day.

Because we had stayed out all night, we had gotten only about one hour of sleep. Early the next morning, I dropped off this friend at her house since she didn't work with me at Dulles. I then went to pick up my other girlfriend (who does work with me.) I got to her house early so I slept for a few minutes, thinking I needed just enough sleep to get me down the road. "Down the road" is from Winchester, VA to the Dulles area, which is about an hour of driving, depending on traffic.

I asked my girlfriend to talk to me on our way to work. I had told her that I had been out partying all night and I was very tired. So we talked all the way down the road. We had a lot in common and a lot to talk about. Once I got to work I was extremely tired--to the point of falling asleep while standing up! On my breaks I would sit on the bench and doze off, but all the while it was hurting more that it was helping..

About noon we got approved to go home early. I was so excited! I was going to go home and get some rest and then enjoy the rest of the beautiful day. So we left taking the Dulles exit to Winchester. On the way home in the car while talking to my girlfriend, all my partying from the night before suddenly caught up with me and I fell asleep at the wheel. When my girlfriend yelled my name is was too late to get control of the car.

Usually that particular Dulles exit is pretty crowded. That day a doctor and two nurses happened to be behind us. I lost control of my car and it flipped three times. Neither one of us had our seatbelts on and everything in the car became uprooted except her and me. My seats came up, my stereo came out and all my windows broke while I judy sat there watching the whole thing happpen around me. I was even talking to my girlfriend while flipping the car! The car was totalled but my girlfriend and I were fine. The doctor and two nurses couldn't believe it. My car had gone up on the bridge. Had it gone just a little more, it would have fallen to the highway below.

I felt a huge arm wrapped around me the whole time my car was flipping and at the end of this arm was a fist. I didnt tell my girlfriend at the time because I thought she would think I was crazy. So in church the next morning the preacher ask if anyone had any blessings or anything to give thanks for. I stood up for the first time in my church career since age five and spoke my miracle. My girlfriend turned around with tears in her eyes and stood up and spoke of how she had felt the elbow of the arm that was wrapped around me. We both cried. That was my first and only real experience with God and I am blessed.

Shawn Creswell
Bunker Hill, West Virginia