Joanna Watson shares her extraordinary testimony of surviving a devastating car accident and discovering God’s miraculous provision in the aftermath. From a terrifying mountain crash to a series of seemingly impossible encounters, she reflects on how the experience changed her life and convinced her that God still works miracles today.
Strictly speaking, I could be dead. The night it nearly happened, I was in the USA, on holiday with my brother. It was August 1999 and, having just watched the sunset from a picture-perfect mountainside vantage point, we were driving back down the mountain when, for a combination of reasons, I lost control of the car.
Plunging over the edge of the road, into pitch-black darkness, I screamed the name of Jesus. A huge dust cloud billowed up behind us, as we hurtled down about fifty metres, through gaps between gigantic conifer trees – until the car flipped and ended on its roof.
Upside down and held in by my seatbelt, I had fractured my spine in two places – while my brother had sustained a barely detectable finger fracture. Despite feeling terrified, I knew, with all my being, that God had saved my life.
READ MORE: Saved from injury in a car crash
The immediate aftermath saw a series of incredible ‘God-incidences’, as he orchestrated a succession of strangers to be exactly where they needed to be.
The first car that stopped had a doctor in it, who, despite being on holiday, clambered down the mountainside to tend to my medical needs. The second car contained a man with a mobile phone, with signal, who called for an ambulance. This was in 1999, when mobile phone ownership was rare, and signal even rarer, especially in remote rural locations. And in the third car was a Christian woman, who sat and prayed with me in the darkness.
Through these and other remarkable ways, God miraculously provided for all my needs.
Through these and other remarkable ways, God miraculously provided for all my needs. Surviving such a dramatic car accident changed the direction of my life. Subtle at first, it gradually became more obvious; modern-day miracle stories kept coming my way.
I didn’t go looking for them. I simply journeyed faithfully with friends and family through some truly tough times, pleading with God to do the seemingly impossible in each situation – because I knew that, if Jesus had done miracles for me, he could also do miracles for them.
READ MORE: Life Lessons: I didn’t ‘see’ the light, until I was blind
Later, when three different Christians (all unknown to me) spoke prophetically into my life over a period of eighteen months, it proved to be a turning point.
Later, when three different Christians (all unknown to me) spoke prophetically into my life over a period of eighteen months, it proved to be a turning point. On each occasion, the message was clear: I needed to write down my stories and the stories of those around me, because God was going to use them to impact many people. There was also consistency in the way it happened. Each time, I was in a public Christian meeting, the worship and teaching had ended, and their words were spoken over me in front of other people. (God probably knew I would need witnesses to hold me accountable!)
What followed was my blog, which is still going strong; then my book, Light Through the Cracks: How God Breaks In When Life Turns Tough, which contains ten true stories united by a common theme. All of them feature ordinary people encountering God in extraordinary ways, amid tough times. For example, cancer disappearing without trace; a baby born extremely prematurely, only to confound the medical predictions about his prognosis; cash appearing out of nowhere to keep a church from closing; and a teenager seeing her debilitating illness vanish in an instant. Each story is raw, real and messy; nothing is sanitised; and they don’t all have happy endings. But within each one, God did at least one miracle in response to our desperate faith-filled prayers.
READ MORE: Beauty from ashes
The reality is that our unchanging God is still in the miracle business – not just in the dim and distant past, or some far-flung part of the world – but here at home, in the 21st century. He still works wonders that confound the laws of nature or science. He still brings the light of Jesus into the darkest of situations.
None of us knows when we might need God to do a miracle, because none of us knows when tough times might come: the unwelcome diagnosis, the unexpected phone call, the relationship at breaking point, or finances under strain. How will we navigate them when they come? Will we make wise choices?
For example, will we choose to listen to what God has to say about our tough time? Will we stand firm on his word, no matter what the circumstances are dictating? Will we face the facts, but choose the truth? The choice about who we listen to is one of the six life-changing choices contained in my new book, It’s All About the Light: How to Find God in Tough Times. As we start to make these choices, our lives will change – and miracles may well follow!
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