I've always battled for the right to be listened to.

To be heard.

To be understood.

I grew up around a voice a lot louder than mine and I kept quiet for a very long time in fear of it.

Over the years my frustration built until it sporadically and violently erupted, and I'd yell and scream all my frustrations and anger at once.

This usually didn't end well.

Over the years, I found that when you don't follow your path, design your day, or tell your own story, someone will do it for you.

Maybe this was one of the reasons I stopped believing in God and the Catholic Church as a teenager.
Maybe I had enough people on earth running my life without celestial deities getting in on the action too.

But when I moved to Los Angeles many years later, God was everywhere I turned.
My roommate Suzanna had a strong Baptist faith and wanted to take me to church.
My landlady's Pentecostal sister had just been shunned by her boyfriend because she didn't speak in tongues.

And on Saturday, September 21, 2013, I got a violent reminder that God may exist after all.  

I'm 3 weeks into a 90-day stay as I pursue my work visa to move to Los Angeles permanently.

I've been hustling non-stop to get what I need – a lawyer, job offers, tons of paperwork - and I decide to take a day off and enjoy the city in my Nissan rental.

First to the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills for the premiere of a documentary about an Afghani-American family reuniting after being separated since 9/11…

A stunning film with an engaging Q&A with the filmmakers.

From there I zip across town to a Shakespeare reading at Echo Park Lake...

But my roommate neglects to tell me I'd be taking part, not just watching!
I play along though, and the group all love this shy and grouchy Irish guy wearing flower crowns and putting on silly accents for the show.
Little did I know that six months later I'd be moving into an apartment just a few blocks from the park with a wonderful woman I met that day.

Then dinner with a friend and I zip back up the 5 to my suburban rental house in Sun Valley.

I dive into the garden pool and watch the palm trees sway as the sun sets behind them. Ahhh…

This is the life.

I feel so good that though I’m exhausted, I want more.

I search the local listings and find a nighttime light show at Santa Monica Beach.

A quick shower and I'm rolling down the 405 which fizzes with Saturday night crazy.

The crash happens first very slowly…

Then all at once.

I can remember from numerous bike falls as a kid, that the drop to the ground takes an age…

Then the painful impact happens all at once.

I’m a good distance back from the car in front.

All of us Saturday night adventurers whip along in a red-and-white streaky dance.

I rock out to some Doors, fully dropping into the LA vibe.

My teenage self, listening to The Doors in rainy Galway, Ireland, would be so jealous of me right now.

Up ahead a metallic CRUNCH slaps me into high alert.           

Then one set of red car lights disappear.

Then another.

Where did they go?

As a set of white lights spin around towards me, I get my answer.

Three cars spin and bounce across the busy freeway like pinballs.

I slow but can't tell which way I should steer as these metal machine whirls in the dark in front of me.

Too late, I see one coming straight for me.

I brace the wheel with both hands…

I jam the brakes…

And wait for impact.

It hits hard.

Then I hold my breath and wait for the rear impact which will surely follow.

Tires screech behind me...

But no second shunt.

Marooned in the middle lane, car crippled and not knowing what to do, I step onto the freeway and take the abuse of the drivers who don't want their fun nights out ruined by my destroyed car.

How inconsiderate of me.

The CHP patrol car rams my crippled car off the road.

The ambulances up ahead suggest others have got it much worse than me. 

As I wait for the recovery truck in the shoulder, still in shock, I see a blue light towering over the white and red streaks of headlights.

It’s a cross, twenty feet tall, glowing brightly on top of a structure half a mile away.

In the Saturday night chaos, I’m the only one watching it.

It seems like it’s there just for me.

As I ride home in the recovery truck, dazed and nursing the torn ligaments in my shoulder, I wonder what seeing the cross at that moment meant.

I always think there's a hidden meaning or lesson to be learned in moments like this. 

That night I had tried to do too much.

I didn't know when to quit.

I had had a great day, but I wanted more.

I got greedy.

Or did I?

Maybe I just wanted to continue writing my story that night, one that I had worked so hard to start writing for myself by moving to LA.  

Maybe God knew that, and he helped me stop just short of the ultimate sacrifice the cross represented…

Crossing over from this life, with no more story to be told.

An infinite number of moments and incidents led to me stopping just in time.

I had got a punch in the shoulder from above instead of a fatal blow.

I had been given more time to tell my story in LA…

And I wasn't going to waste it.