A Tale of Roads through the Woods
by Rob Fergusson, September 2006

Our Story

Many years ago I was working in a corporate management position where I had offices at two facilities an hour drive apart. I made the drive from one to the other frequently for years. There was a choice of routes. One could take an interstate highway and then a state highway, or could take any of a series of very scenic shortcuts through the woods on roads that were so rural they had no names, no shoulders, no center lines, and rarely another car on them. I usually chose the rural roads.

There came a period when job pressures mounted and I grew more and more tense. My tension translated into a heavier and heavier foot on the gas pedal. One day I was shocked to get a speeding ticket. I saw it as oddly bad luck since the police had never bothered with those remote roads in all the years I had been traveling them.

On I flew down those roads, undaunted by the speeding ticket. A week after the ticket, I barreled around a turn in the woods to find a couple of cars stopped dead in front of me. There had been a deadly head-on collision in front of us just moments before. A couple of weeks later I got my second speeding ticket * on an even more unlikely, more remote road, followed rapidly by yet another deadly accident right in front of me.

I finally got the message to slow down. It felt like a message from angels watching out for me. Interestingly, after slowing down, I never again saw an accident or a police car on those rural roads.

I asked a minister later how you can tell the difference between an ordinary coincidence and a sign. She said, with great conviction, that there are no coincidences * they are all signs.

I didn't experience another coincidence/sign for a long time, but when it came, it was unmistakable, and came at a time when I needed guidance in making a major life choice.

Other coincidences have followed, becoming more frequent. Maybe that's because they are coming more frequently, or maybe they have always been there, but I was too self-centered, too unaware, or spinning too fast to see them right in front of me.

Signs have to be there for you, too. We aren't any different; we're all human beings from the same Creator. If you aren't finding them, practice slowing down, listening quietly, and opening your heart wider to the possibility that they are there for you.

Wishing you vision, recovery and stability;
Rob