Not long after my conversion, I became pregnant with my first son. The Carmelite Sisters, who were running the school where I was teaching, put his name in their perpetual book of prayer when he was born. They also gave me a pretty little light blue pendant. It had a pretty image of Mary on the front. I immediately put that medal on a silver chain around my neck and never took it off.
Two years later, I strapped my son in his car seat as I had now done a thousand times, and we set off one morning to return a blanket that was a hideous color of green. I was only one block from our house when a car traveling approximately 50 mph hit my driver's side door at full speed. I don't think either one of us ever saw the other. His little red car was hidden behind a lawn truck pulling a trailer. It happened so quickly, yet at the point of impact, every motion slowed down to a crawl, and I really did see my entire life flash before my eyes. I remember the other driver's car bouncing away from my car in slow motion - which ended up landing about fifty feet away. I remember my head jerking side to side and hitting the driver's side window while the glass shattered all over me. I remember feeling a sting in my right leg.
While this was happening, I heard my son scream from the back seat, but everything went black. I struggled to see out the front window, but I couldn't. Everything was black, yet I saw my life. In an instant, I was four and then twelve and then nineteen and then giving birth and everything in between. I remember in that instant, I cried out to God to please let me live. I remember saying I had too much to live for and begged for my life. The next memory I have was of looking up and seeing six police cars, two ambulances, and a fire truck. There were two paramedics crawling in the passenger side door telling me I would be okay. I turned my head to look at them and they were smiling like the faces of angels. The steering wheel had cracked in two, a piece of the gear shift was stuck in my leg (thus the sting), every window in the car was shattered, and they were pulling me out of the passenger side door backwards.
The first thing I said was, "Where is my son?!" The female paramedic helped me to stand up and assured me that they had removed him from the car before me and taken him immediately to the ambulance still strapped in his car seat to keep him immobilized and safe. She began asking me if I was okay. The endorphins running through me led me to believe that I was. I felt nothing - completely numb! She began to dust me off as I was covered head to toe in glass. Once I came to my senses, I began to feel a burning sensation throughout my body and my head was really hurting. She convinced me to lie down on a stretcher and be taken to the hospital for further examination. As they were strapping me down, she told me I would get to be right next to my son in the ambulance and that we would not be separated. It was the next thing she told me that I will never forget.
She said she had something very important to tell me and that I needed to pay attention. I told her I was. She began with, "You know how I had to dust you off when you got out of the car because of all the glass?" I said, "yes." She said that she has to do that for everyone at every accident where a window has broken. Then she said, "When I pulled your son out of the car, I immediately went to dust him off because I didn't want any glass to fall into his eyes. Only, there wasn't any glass on him...not one piece...not one piece of glass dust. I kept checking him over and over because I couldn't believe it. There was, however, a silhouette of glass around his body. It was like he had been covered in saran wrap at the point of impact."
Covered in saran wrap? When they placed me into the ambulance next to my son, it was a feeling of relief I had never felt before. Just to know my baby was okay and I could reach out and grab his hand. I could touch him. He seemed fine - the paramedics had been keeping him happy.
How could that have happened? Why was I covered head to toe in glass, yet he didn't even have glass dust on him. The paramedic's words will forever stay in my mind. I will never forget the look on her face as she told me. She also happened to mention, "I've been doing this job for twelve years now, and I have never seen this happen." I told her his guardian angel must have shielded him from the impact. She smiled and said, "I think so."
When the Carmelites gave me the pendant, I didn't even know what it was. Again, I was a recent convert and I still don't know all the images of Mary. It looked pretty and it was a gift from them so I wore it. It was a miraculous medal. A miraculous medal depicts Mary as she was seen one evening by a nun. Mary said to her, "Have a medal struck upon this model. Those who wear it will receive great graces, especially if they wear it around their neck." I believe my son and I were protected that day. I had begun a devotion to Mary back when I was teaching, and she certainly sent her graces to us in our time of trouble.
The Meaning of the Miraculous Medal
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