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Testimony: God's Protection And Mercy Saves Me And My Family
Jeremy Muller's testimony "God's Protection And Mercy Saves Me And My Family" on 4/11/2013, 1:38pm...
Revelation 12:11 says we overcome our enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony.
There is much that my family has overcome over the past years and this testimony is meant to be a declaration of God’s miracle of protection, an encouragement to those who feel that the obstacles and troubles that we face are too much to bear, but also the consequences of not doing the right thing.
For those who do not know already, I spent two and a half years working in a real estate company in Galle, in the south of Sri Lanka. Holidays and vacations were very few and far between and work was so demanding that I would spend very little time with my family. When April holidays came around in 2011, we took the opportunity to spend a week in Colombo, visiting friends and basically spending time together as a family.
On the 17th of April, 2011, half way back on our drive down to Galle, I fell asleep at the wheel.
The scream from my wife Roshella woke me up. What I tell you now happened in just a few seconds. The van had drifted to the side of the road hurtling towards a parked police truck. My foot had pressed down on the pedal when I fell asleep and we were heading at probably 85 kilometers an hour. I tried to swerve out of the way but we crashed hard into the back of the truck which was hit so hard that it was thrown forward smashing into a lamp post that came crashing down across the road. The force of the crash ripped through the front of the van on Roshella’s side, burying her and my 3 year old daughter Angel under the dashboard. The van spun out of control and finally stopped around a 100 yards away facing back the way we had come from.
I couldn’t find Angel and I couldn’t move. The steering wheel had pinned me down. All I could see was Roshella’s head above the dashboard. She was not moving and her eyes were wide open, just staring straight at me. I thought she was dead. I looked back and I saw Roshella’s mum twisted around cradling my second two year old daugheter, Vivienne in her arms. They were both moving and Vivi was crying. Roshella’s mum was crying out for help.
I could remember yelling for help and trying to get myself free to help my family
And then a series of miracles happened…
I heard Angel crying. I saw Roshella blink her eyes. I grabbed the steering wheel and pulled it out of its socket. I now had more room to move and I pulled my legs up and pushed hard against the dashboard. It moved out of the way and there I saw Angel. Roshella had leapt over her to protect her and she had somehow managed, in those few seconds, to tuck Angel away in the hollow gap between the two front seats, covering her with her body.
Angel’s forehead was cut and bleeding badly but I managed to pull her out from under the debris and get her out of the van. God gave me strength for I can find no other explanation for being able to do the things I did that day.
I couldn’t leave Angel alone so I carried her with me and ran around to the other side of the van to see to the rest of my family. Roshella’s mum was still embracing Vivi who was crying but okay. In fact she escaped from the accident without a single scratch. I turned my attention to Roshella. A crowd of men were already trying to get her out and they finally managed to clear away the wreckage enough to carry her out.
It was then I heard Roshella’s mum screaming out. “He’s taking Vivi!” I spun around to see a man had grabbed Vivi and was running away from the scene of the accident.
With Angel in my arms I chased after him managed to get Vivi back. The man, in the midst of all this chaos, had tried to kidnap my daughter. Making my way back to the van, I saw two men who had taken charge of the situation. They had stopped their van, carried Roshella and her mum into the vehicle and quickly helped me and the kids in as well.
We were rushed to the Bentota Hospital were Angel was stitched up. Vivi was shaken but okay, Angel was knocked out by the anesthetics, Roshella had only at the hospital properly regained consciousness.
The village hospital did not have the facilities to take care of them. Not even an X-Ray machine. I managed to get a van to take us back to Galle where they were taken care of.
Roshella’s X-Rays revealed a clean break on the left jaw as well as a fracture on her chin. She had also broken four bones in her foot. She needed to be operated on. My mum-in-law had broken her hip.
Doctor’s were not available at the hospital we went to and I had to transfer Roshella to the Ruhunu Hospital. There she underwent two simultaneous surgeries. Two titanium plates were fixed into her jaw and four pins in her foot.
I had now to face the consequences of my actions for driving without a license, which meant that the insurance company would not honour the claim. My boss and his lawyer both advised me to lie about the situation and say that I was not the driver and just a passenger. They bribed the police to change the police statements, they paid a guy to say that he was the driver and even though I felt very uncomfortable lying about it, I went along since the lawyer told me that I would probably be locked up and I couldn’t allow that to happen since I was the only one left capable of taking care of my family. By giving in, and not telling the truth, I had to eventually pay for everything that I thought I would save on insurance since, when the insurance investigators visited the scene of the accident, the very first person they spoke to showed them a video he had taken of the entire accident, clearly showing that the statements I had made were false.
I now had to face court fines, pay for damages to the police truck, pay for the entire cost of the van as well as pay for the damages to the lamp post, not to mention innumerable fines for falsifying police statements. The entire amount including hospital fees, totaled 2.25 million rupees. Two years later and I am still paying this debt. The lesson I learnt the hard way is that we should never, ever lie to get out of a scrape, no matter how dire the consequences you think you might face. My lie cost me double what I would have had to pay and caused a lot of mental stress and worry.
We eventually recovered even though the physical scars of that day still remain. Roshella and her mum still have a slight limp and the scar on Angel’s forehead may never fade away. We left Galle; moved back to Colombo and to the Church.
The fact that we all walked away from that crash is purely God’s miracle. The fact that I was able to rip a steering wheel out of its socket and move back a crushed dashboard was purely God’s strength. I did not need food or sleep for five days after the accident; again, God’s sustenance and endurance. God protected us that day, gave us strength and helped us recover speedily, showed us a way through our darkest times, and today we can stand before Him and praise His name and thank him over and over again for his protection, mercy and forgiveness.