Life's Important Lessons

Every now and again one feels the need, or maybe even the direction, to share something special and personal. I’ve always been comfortable telling stories and will do so from time to time. It’s much more rewarding that way as I can feed off the reaction of the listeners and maybe twist my storytelling style to generate a laugh. Anyone who knows me understands that I enjoy making other people chuckle. It’s part of who I am.

This effort is not for that purpose. And as I begin to put my experiences to paper I’m wondering to what end. This may just end up in my drawer at home or on my blog or I may email it to my children and possibly my mom and siblings. All I know at this point is that I feel very much like I must write this down, and do it today.

Having been raised in a Christian home I can’t recall a time that I doubted that God loves me. I was taught from an early age that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be my example and to be the Savior of all mankind. While there were times in my life that I didn’t hold onto that promise there has never been a time in my life that I doubted it.

My mind races back to that song most of us learned before we were old enough to attend kindergarten.

Jesus loves me! This I know, For the Bible tells me so;

Little ones to Him belong, They are weak but He is strong.

Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me!

The scriptures also give readers additional confirmation. Luke 12:6&7 reads:

Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Additionally Doctrine & Covenants 84:80 gives a promise specific to missionaries but I feel comfortable in my knowledge that my Heavenly Father cares for me in similar fashion:

And any man that shall go and preach this gospel of the kingdom, and fail not to continue faithful in all things, shall not be weary in mind, neither darkened, neither in body, limb, nor joint; and a hair of his head shall not fall to the ground unnoticed. And they shall not go hungry, neither athirst.

There has never been a question that God loves me beyond what I can comprehend. I often wonder why, since I feel that I often disappoint and regularly don’t measure up to where He believes I should be. But the fact remains that He does and the following 3 events are testimony-building experiences that prove it to me one more undeniable time.

As you all know, I like to ride my bike and if I’m not thinking about family, home or church and work duties, I’m probably riding or thinking about riding, reading, researching something related to bikes, bike repairs, bike travels, etc. It’s been this way for many years but the internet has increased this hundredfold.

I’ve been riding bikes for nearly 30 years, having started about 1983 in Bishop, California. The first few years were spent riding 7-8 miles per outing. Then I found challenge in trying to ride either faster than a previous ride or further distance than previous routes. Before long my riding became such that 25 miles wasn’t an issue provided I had the time to do it.

Over the years I’ve done a little local, fun racing. It wasn’t anything too serious and I always knew that in any race I’d be slower than some and faster than others. I wasn’t there to win or even compete, only compete with my self-doubt.  I’ve competed in races that were as short as 10 or 12 miles and as long as 70 miles.

In time, my racing days were over and my riding became more focused on health and endurance rather than speed. The longest day ever on a bike for me was 121 miles followed by 85 miles the next day as Alessandra and I rode in the Seattle to Portland ride in 2004.

The reason I introduce this short chronology of my cycling is to set the stage; in all these events, all these many miles that I’ve ridden, I have never crashed. Sure I’ve toppled over a few times when I came to a stop and couldn’t get my shoe cleats disconnected from the pedals. Anyone who rides has done this. I’ve fallen over gently when I have accidentally veered into the sand on a road shoulder and lost momentum. But in 30 years and probably between 15,000 and 20,000 miles I have never crashed.

That brings me to 3 cycling events that I’ve experienced in the past 30 days or so. I’ll relate them one at a time.

August 14 – Mercer Island Slough (Washington)

This was a Tuesday afternoon and I had found time to get in a quick 20 miles before Melodie returned home from work. I had ridden over to Mercer Island because it had some hills and I wanted to do a bit of climbing to see how my legs felt.

This was a route I had ridden 30 or more times prior to this day and would consider my knowledge of this route very good. I was riding on the bike trail and coming off of the island and back onto the Bellevue side under the I-90 bridge.

Because of the hills this particular portion allowed me to gain speed as I approached a sweeping left hand turn. I estimate that I was traveling at 22-23 mph. Now, in a car that seems awfully slow but when you are on a 5-foot wide asphalt path and are riding on 23mm wide tires, which equates to .905 inches wide, it is really flying.

As soon as I entered this turn and was fully committed I felt my rear wheel slip from underneath me. Instantly I knew I was going down. I was going to hit the pavement hard and slide into some low brush, including some blackberry brambles. As quickly as that thought entered my mind I somehow managed to shift my weight and get the rear tire under my center of gravity and was able to avoid the anticipated crash.

Once I was back under control I pedaled another 10 feet before I realized that my rear tire had gone flat. The air was completely gone and had left the tube in seconds. What that meant is that I had entered that turn with nothing more than a bit of rubber and a metal wheel that was touching the pavement. The end result of this would be that the rim would act almost like a metal skate on ice. There is literally nothing to be done.

I took about 10 minutes to change the rear tube with the spare and tools that I keep on my bike, the whole time patting myself on the back about my bike handling skills. While at that time I thanked my Heavenly Father for watching over me, I really felt like he had protected me by giving me the bike experience that I needed to overcome a potential disaster. How arrogant was that?

Had I gone down I think I would have been ok enough to get back on the bike and finish the ride. Certainly I would have been quite scraped up and the bike would have been ok but all in all it would have been a minor crash in my book.

Saturday Sept 8 – Post Falls, Idaho

Between Sept 7-9 Melodie and I drove from Washington to Utah to visit Alessandra and Kyle in Springville. I’ve been training for a metric century ride in early October so I knew I wanted to continue riding while there. Consequently I transported my bike with us. For fun our driving route took us the scenic route; from Seattle to Spokane and then to Missoula, MT before we headed south on I-15 towards Utah.

I planned to get on the bike in Spokane and ride across the state line to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho on Saturday. This would give me a chance to train for the 37 miles I needed that day while Melodie had time to have a pedicure and meet me in Idaho and a predefined location.

This was a great ride. The Washington side was full of friendly walkers, runners and other cyclist while the Idaho side had less trail users and allowed me to enjoy the scenery and the ultra smooth, recently paved Centennial Trail. It was a fantastic day for an awesome ride and I took advantage of every opportunity to enjoy it.

About 25 miles or so into my day I was riding on the trail which paralleled the freeway. As I entered the outskirts of Post Falls, Idaho I had an experience that sent chills up my spine. As I slowed and entered a gentle turn I heard an unmistakable female human voice say clearly and loudly, “I’m right behind you.”

I looked over my left shoulder to see if someone was passing me. I thought that would be odd because typically one rider overcoming another would holler out, “on your left”, or even less frequent, “on your right” to warn the rider that they were going to pass.

However I heard “I’m right behind you” so clearly, distinctly and without any doubt in my mind, then or now, that I turned over my right shoulder to see if there was a radio blaring from the backyard of a nearby house that could have been the source of that voice. There were no houses nearby and no other persons that I saw. Nothing. I saw and heard nothing more other than that one sentence.

I immediately slowed down and mulled this over in my mind, wondering what I could have heard, or at least wondering what the source was. While the source of the voice was unclear and somewhat creepy, I didn’t feel any fear from that experience.  I thought about this for days and even then came up with the theory that it may have been a disembodied spirit of some sort. Now don’t go “all weird” on my thought. This voice was so real that I had to try to make some sort of sense of it.

Before we left to come home from Utah I mentioned this experience, without having any explanation, to Melodie and then later to Kyle & Alessandra.

In just a little more than a week later I would have my third and most profound experience.

Monday Sept 17 – Bellingham, WA

Because I was working out of town, in Bellingham, for the next 2 weeks and because I was still training I brought my bike with me. I typically end up back at my hotel by 4:00 or 4:15 each day and there’s plenty of time to get good ride in. Such was the case on Monday the 17^th.

I had a planned route to ride which would have me climb gradually from downtown Bellingham past Lake Padden and towards Lake Samish. I would turn around at the firehouse and head back to town on this rural road. The ride out was uneventful and as I returned my speed increased about as rapidly as the “bike lane” deteriorated. I use quotes around the “bike lane” because it really wasn’t an official lane.

Unfortunately there was a painted white stripe between the auto lane and this area that was wide enough to fit a bike, and such that the drivers thought I should be there, but in reality it wasn’t really suitable and presented a lot of obstacles such as debris and uneven pavement. I “popped” in and out of this lane as often as the circumstance required me to.

Once again I’m traveling about 25 mph and just as a car passes I look back and realize that there aren’t any cars coming and this lane is wide open for me to use. 

I decide to pop out of the bike lane one more time and as I do something causes me to loose complete traction. Before I know it I am sliding sideways (at 25 mph) across one lane of traffic and then across another lane of traffic. Of course I had made this move because there were no cars so there wasn’t any concern about them.

Both of my wheels had stopped turning and I was literally sliding sideways for about 35-40 feet. Both feet had come unclipped so that my legs were flailing all over the place. I don’t think I was even centered over the bike at this point.

The first thought that entered my mind is that I was definitely hitting the asphalt on this one. Nothing was going to prevent that from happening, it was just a matter of when and how hard. My center of gravity was leaning into the direction of the slide and I felt like I was going to hit at any second. Before I know it the bike rights itself slightly and before I can process another thought I’m back into the same position for a second time, my center of gravity was way to the left and I realized a second time that I was going to hit the pavement after all.

A moment or so later, which felt like hours, the bike seems to right itself one more time. I really had no control over my body weight or the bike, so when I come to a stop in the intersection of a connecting roadway, pointing nearly opposite from the direction I had been traveling, with both feet firmly on the ground; all I can do is laugh. I think if I hadn’t laughed I would have cried.

I don’t know if I’d say I saw my life flash before me because I knew I would survive this fall. But as I was sliding I calculated, very quickly mind you, that I would probably break a shoulder, an arm (certainly a wrist), or a clavicle and possibly all three. I honestly believe that I would have been hospitalized for a day or two. It was that big of a potential crash.

Needless to say, before continuing, my laugh turned into a very sincere and thankful prayer of gratitude which has continued until this writing. I can’t prove anything to you or to myself but I am positively convinced that the Lord has been watching over me and protecting me for many, many years and evidently more intensely for the past 30 or so days.

Some might call these experiences coincidence or luck. I do not. I know it was the steadying hand of God that has kept me safe.

I believe in angels. Today, I believe that I have at least one angel assigned to me as a guardian. That first flat and slide where I had patted myself on the back for my bike handling skills was the work of an angel. Somehow he or she was able to keep me from that first fall.

When I was in Post Falls, Idaho and heard that female voice I am now convinced that this was my angel, there by assignment to be “right behind you [me]” possibly slowing me down enough to keep me out of another potential trouble spot that day.

And without any doubt or equivocation it was an angel or angels working under the direction of my Heavenly Father to right that bike on the 17^th. There was not just one time but two times that I was on my way to the pavement and miraculously, and I do mean that literally, I was lifted back up and positioned to stop that bike before a serious injury.

We often hear that having cancer is such a life changing experience. That wasn’t the case for me. I didn’t have a battle on my hands as many cancer patients typically do. I even joked about it as “beginner” or “apprentice” cancer.

I don’t know maybe I was supposed to learn something then. But now it seems like my Father in heaven has decided to take a different approach to get my attention. These combined experiences have profoundly changed my life.

So, what am I to learn from this?  Well, first and foremost I know that God loves me and cares about me. I have never known this to this depth and degree before. Secondly, I need to slow down. I have felt so good on the bike this year, post cancer surgery (ala Lance Armstrong) that I have been riding much faster all year. Thirdly, for reasons unknown, I am being protected, preserved if you will. It’s His reason. I need to prayerfully seek to know what that is and then work and be prepared to respond to what he may need from me.